Button, 25 December 2010

 We are disconsolate.  We returned early this morning at 4:00 a.m. from our trip to one of this city's two emergency hospitals for animals, without our long-time companion, our little black-haired Pomeranian-Poodle, Button.  We have always made it a practise to take her everywhere with us.  We are quite unused to leaving her anywhere.  But of course, she is no longer there.  It was her body we left there.  Which hasn't made it any easier.  She is gone, and that is what is so painful for us.  We see her and reminders of what she has been to us, everywhere we look.

We were unable to sleep last night.  Tonight will likely be easier.  Our other little companion, Riley, has given no indication he is aware of her absence.  Which is not surprising, since they have never been companions.  Button had no interest in him from the start, when he was introduced into our home almost thirteen years ago, when she was seven years old.  They shared our home with us, and they shared our attention, but in the last few years our attention was disproportionately geared toward fulfilling Button's accelerating needs as she became more frail, more susceptible to accidents because of her loss of eyesight.

Riley slept well, last night.  And this morning he seems oblivious to her absence.  We are not.  Her absence will mean that we will take down barriers put in place to protect her from her feeble but determined march-abouts.  I have begun washing her blankets, her little coats, her collar, her harness that we use to guide her about during our daily ravine walks.

Last night, around half-past ten, she suddenly, while sleeping peacefully on the sofa downstairs, suffered a massive stroke.  She began experiencing a violent seizure.  Which I did not witness.  My husband was there, horrified at the amount of energy being expended as her neurons misfired and she was thrashing about in the throes of the seizure.  I heard his exclamation and came downstairs to find him holding her, comforting her.  And I took her as he began to call the 24-hour veterinarian hospital.  As I held her she emitted constant expressions of deep distress as though speaking of her fear and confusion, and I comforted her.

It was a long drive to the hospital.  As we parked, Riley began emitting the same sounds as Button had, obviously distressed at some dim memory that brought back to him remembrance of our having brought him there about six years ago, in an emergency that he had suffered, and which had been administered to there by one of the attending veterinarians, ameliorating his condition. 

We waited interminably it seemed, for two previous emergencies to be looked after, the owners of two cats waiting anxiously for their problems to be resolved as much as possible, before finally departing. 

Three things might have occasioned the seizure, the veterinarian whom we recognized from an earlier visit, informed us.  Although Button was now calm and relaxed, not too disoriented, she could undergo another seizure, even more dramatic, perhaps even a series of them, at any time.  The three things that might have caused the stroke were her heart, her kidneys, her brain perhaps having had oxygen or blood cut off because of a tumour.  There were tests that could be performed to determine the exact cause, and a regimen of drugs could be attempted to offset the potential of further seizures.

We were fortunate to have had her presence with us for over nineteen years, the veterinarian said.  In her professional career she hadn't seen too many of Button's age.  We had the option, now while she was not in pain, and experiencing the comfort of the seizure behind her, of ending her life.  The murmur in her heart was obvious, and the veterinarian felt the state of her heart was in what she termed a "third period" of deterioration.