Goodbye Sweet Sassy

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What can you say about an eight year old dog who died?

That she was beautiful? That she could hug you like she never wanted to let go? That even though you have six dogs and aren’t supposed to say this, she was really your favorite? That, God damn it, it was just too soon and she was just too young to die? That, simply put, she just made your life better?

My sweet Sassy, just eight years old, died this morning, possibly from a brain tumor. We’ll never know for sure. I think (hope) that in her final hours, she went without pain or suffering. I know she relieved us of the awful decision that we might have had to make.

Sassy’s final story began over two months ago, when she first suffered a series of seizures. At the time, I blogged about her illness, and why she was so special to us. I’ve also written about Sassy’s rescue (and all our other dogs). Excuse me for telling her story through links. It is all that I have the energy to do.

I’m still asking the question, “How can a dog that I took for a four mile run on Saturday be dead by Wednesday?” The shock of how quickly this happened is leaving me numb and almost disbelieving that she is gone. Even though I know, because I was there.

Alan and I were away over the weekend. When we came home on Sunday evening, everything was normal. The dogs were happy to see us. Sassy especially, gave us a loud, enthusiastic greeting. As was her usual, she barked, she jumped, she hugged. She was really happy that we were finally home.

Two hours later, as we were relaxing in the front room, I heard noises coming from the office. Thinking that maybe one of the dogs was ‘investigating’ the trash, I went to check it out. What I saw was Sassy have a seizure. I quickly moved to her and gathered her in my arms. I called to Alan, then tried to talk calmly to Sassy to help her through her attack.

She had one seizure after another. In the brief time in between, she was scared and disoriented. When we saw that this was just going to continue, we called the emergency vet. They told us to bring her in. We waited a little longer, hoping against hope that, stupid as it sounds, she would recover and could wait until daytime. Finally, we knew that we had to take her in. I drove, Alan sat in the back, holding tight onto our little girl, murmuring  to her, trying to reassure her with his touch.

We spent several hours at the vet, finally leaving her overnight, sedated. I may do a separate blog post on what I feel is the scam of overcharging for emergency vet care. Here, let me just say that when we said we couldn’t afford the four figure estimate just to stay overnight, a quick re-working of the numbers cut the estimate in half. Better for us, but how many just pay without question?

During our wait, we discussed with the vet the possible causes. Regular epilepsy was unlikely because of her age (it usually starts much younger). There are many causes of seizures, but I had the impression that the doctor thought that the chance of a brain tumor was likely. Alan and I were in denial, but looking back, not just this past weekend, but at a few behavior changes over the last couple of months, I tend to think that was what was causing her seizures. In any case, the protocol was the same: Phenobarbital to treat the seizures, layering on additional meds if necessary. If at a later time, symptoms of a brain tumor occur, they could, for a time, be relieved with medications, including steroids. Doggy brain surgery is not only prohibitively expensive, it is also usually unsuccessful. Basically, brain tumors are terminal. But first, we just needed to get through the night.

Alan picked Sassy up early on Monday morning. With instructions that doubled the dose of phenobarbital she was taking, he brought home our still sedated darling. She spent the first day mostly sleeping, though, when she was awake, she exhibited behavior expected from the increase in her dosage: restlessness, dopiness, problems with balance. When I came home from a long day at work, she was happy to see me, but quietly, nothing like her normal self. Still, we hoped for recovery, thinking this was just the medication.

We were exhausted from the previous night, so I headed to bed around 8:00. I was awakened a couple hours later by the sounds of Sassy bumping into things. She spent most of the night wandering restlessly around the house, sometimes clumsily bumping into things, walking in circles, just generally scaring the hell out of me. At one point, I looked into her eyes, and they were dull, each looking outward (the opposite of crossed, I’m not sure the term). Finally, in the early morning hours, Alan picked Sassy up and put her between us in bed, where she finally fell deeply asleep.

In the morning, we were happy that she finally not only slept, but ate and drank some water as well. A call to the vet assured us that the restlessness could again be attributed to the increase in dosage. By the time I left for work, her eyes were clear again and almost normal, and while she still was not herself, she seemed headed back toward recovery.

I had a really long day at work, and while I spoke to Alan a couple times, I think that he didn’t want to worry me, so I didn’t know until I got home that Sassy had a bad day. She would wander in circles, sometimes getting ‘stuck’ in a corner or behind furniture, where she would finally whine to be let out. She sometimes would cry, seemingly not in pain, but just a high pitched cry (that I’m sure almost broke my husband’s heart). By the time I got home, she had finally fallen into a deep sleep. So deep, that I continually checked her breathing, making sure her chest was rising and falling.  I didn’t disturb her, and she was still sleeping when Alan and I went to bed.

I woke up a couple hours later, again by the sound of Sassy wandering around the house. I brought pillows out to the living room, put her back on the couch and lay down next to her. The next couple hours were spent getting up, following her around as she rambled, making sure she didn’t hurt herself or get stuck anywhere. She finally lay down on the floor, where I curled by body around her and tried to soothe her to sleep. She started to cry, her body stiffening, and I held her until it passed. I lay with her until she quieted, then because her breathing was loud and quick, moved up to the couch because I was exhausted.

I awoke a couple hours later. Sassy was quiet, and as I had before, I checked for the rise and fall of her chest. This time I didn’t see it. I hurried over to her. She was not breathing and it was obvious that she had stopped breathing quite a while before. Probably shortly after I moved to the couch.

I’m sorry if I’ve given you too much information. As someone who fancies herself a writer, this is part of my grieving process. I can sit here, crying like a baby, thinking about my loving little girl as I write down her story.

I’m still having a hard time processing this. Alan and I have spent the day crying, comforting each other, reminiscing. Our other dogs, either don’t understand what’s going on, or the anthropomorphized version, understand exactly what happened to Sassy and could tell us a few things if they only had the ability to talk.

We don’t really know the cause of Sassy’s death, although we suspect the brain tumor. What I do know, is that when I came home today after running a couple of errands, I walked in the house and was greeted with absolute silence. I don’t know if I can stand that.