Bella's Journey

Knowing this was inevitable – Her joints swollen, her body frail.  She was not able to get up.  She had not moved all day.  We tried to pick her up she would yelp in pain.  It was time.

At our home , My children gathered round Bella, we hugged her, kissed her… Told her how much we loved her and how we wish it was not to be.

My children left and my friends Jade/Vet. and Kacie/Vet. came in to our home and we loved her a little more.  They administered the medicine and just like that it was over.  It was very peaceful except for my crying.

It is horrible to see your friend in pain and not be able to fix it.  Helpless.

I struggled with this decision and am still struggling (even though I know it was the right thing to do – she would not have made it much longer).

I don’t think I was ever so proud of my Bella than the day I saw her run full on with 3 legs only a week after her surgery.  I thought we had it made……I loved that girl.

Thank all of you for your encouragement and support and information throughout these past few months.  It gave me hope and the support I needed as we traveled this unknown road.

Hugs to all of you who have been down this road and those of you who are about to travel it for the first time.

Bella’s mom – Jennifer

http://www.fourpawsinheaven.com/poetry/p-lastbattle.html

My Sweet Bella 2008-2011

 2 weeks ago i took her back in to the vet and we did another xray.  Her tumor has doubled in size.  I am very sad.  Her eating has slowed down.  I am now cooking for her so she’ll eat (which i swore I’d never do… lol)

Today has been difficult.  She stumbled and fell.  Her only back leg appears swollen at the knee joint.  She seems very weak and lays in her bed most of the time.  Everyone tells me I’ll know when it’s time…. but I still worry I won’t.  After this evening watching her stumble and fall and have trouble getting around …….If I’m honest with myself I know It won’t be long.  I wish things were different.  Sometimes I think things are put into our lives to help us somehow…even if it’s this painful, somehow there is something I’m supposed to gain from this.  Maybe someday I’ll know.  It’s still hard. 

Tomorrow is picture day with Bella and the kids.  I am making a stepping stone with her paw print in it tomorrow as well.

I am anxious at work…. wondering how she is…

I got a call from the vet… she came through surgery fine… she’s waking up… you can pick her up after 4.

I updated on Facebook… thrilled that her days of feeling like *!$#% are almost over.

We arrived to pick up Bella.  My husband and I were asked to come into the “sitting” room so we could go over everything with the Doc.

He came in and said she did fine… but after he took her leg off he took a closer look at the plagued leg.  “it looked suspicious” he said… so I did Chest X-rays…..

there  is a tumor.   My hands went to my forehead and my eyes welled up…. I looked down and tried not to let everyone see me.  I said a bad word.  My newly found friend at the clinic (jade) came over and tried to comfort me… offered me kleenex.

What?  What is happening here?…. I thought we did chest x-rays when we did the biopsy… and it was clear?   That was only 4 weeks ago.  What the heck??   My greatest fear had reared her ugly head again…. damn you cancer.  How big is the tumor?  They said it was about the size of a ping pong ball… that big.. ..? is it growing that fast… ?   4 weeks ago we didn’t see it and now it’s there… holy crap… this is not good… not good….. (it’s behind her heart, in front of her lungs – it’s not in her lungs yet.)

He lowered our bill because he said he should’ve done the chest xrays again before he amputated (totally awesome of him to do)… and that we might have made a different decision with that information.  True.  But honestly, I’m glad that it worked out THIS way.  Bella has been given more time and so have I. ….So I have been googling everything and the very first thing that popped up when I was searching was Tripawds.com and the Tripawds facebook page.  Thank goodness for this resource!  I have started feeding her new food.  I’ve been trying the Flax seed oil and cottage cheese – Budwig diet.  I can’t sit back and watch her die…… not without trying to help her. 

So to answer some of your questions….. we do not know for sure that it’s cancer.  We are assuming that it is based on the chest tumor and leg and their relationship.

It sucks because all this time caring for her…. we’ve bonded and developed a better, closer relationship….. and now I’m faced with losing it sooner than later. 

You know…. 2 weeks ago…she was so sick that I might’ve had to euthanize (yes… she was that bad).  I’m glad we didn’t know about the chest tumor.  My vet is right… we may have made a different decision that day… I really don’t like to think about it…because I wouldn’t have wanted to do it…..(euthanize).  You see my husband and I don’t quite see eye to eye on that, so we may have had to make a decision that was best for the family that day…. that revolved around $.  My husband would see it like this… “We cannot justify spending $700 to amputate her leg to give her a few more months to live.”  …You see I do understand that.. as much as I would’ve hated it!(and cried and laid in bed depressed for weeks). 

I made the decision April 13th to take her leg because bella’s doc and I didn’t think it was cancer.  I thought that once that leg was off… we would be home free.!  So in my eyes this played out the way it did for a reason. 

To date……She is the happiest little girl I’ve seen in a long time.!  She is playful, silly, dopey (she’s always been dopey), dippy, hippity-hoppity, loving, social…. just joyous to see her this way.  We have discovered the dog park in town…. Bella loves it!!  I took her on her 2 week ampuversary…. I met my friend Jade (my new friend from the Vet office) and her Bloodhound at the dog park… Bella had her staples and stiches removed just 2 days prior.  I watched Bella go up to fellow dog owners and lean on them so they’d pet her… lol…. it was so cute… then just before we left the dog park… I watched my 3 legged Bella chase a dog full throttle 2 different times.  I was laughing and cheering her on… and jumping up and down… did you see that, I asked Jade?? Bella doesn’t care that she “only has three legs” – she gets around like it’s no big deal… and it isn’t… !       Today…..My down to earth 12 year old daughter commented how thrilling it is to see Bella like this….. she said it was like she’d eaten a rainbow.

This is Bella the 1st day we adopted her.  The back right Knee is the one she no longer has.

 I love this picture of Bella and my littlest one.  This is the one she’d grad his britches as he ran away from her.. giggling… what a fun game.!!

I love this picture of Bella…. pre-problems.

Bella is my Bloodhound. We rescued her from a no kill shelter in Norman, OK in August of 2009. My husband had always wanted a bloodhound… I wasn’t too sure I really wanted another dog. I had lost my BEST canine buddy a few months back, and really didn’t want to get close to another because it was so painful to loose Riley. I think my husband wanted somehow to get a new dog for me? We already have a Husky/German Shepard Mix that is 11, maybe he thought Lukie needed another friend. So along came Bella. 50 lbs of pure dopey dog. She chewed up everything.. OMG.. I didn’t know what to do with this dog.. she kept escaping our yard…just trouble with a capital T. Except my kids loved her. I have 4 children at that time they were 10, 9, 7 and 4. Bella especially liked my 4 year old son… and he liked her. She would chase him down the hall grabbing the back of his shorts and tugging on them.. while his laughter echoed through the house… she has always been very gentle with them… I was impressed.  Soon she figured out she belonged with us. Then about September 2010, I noticed her barely limping. I just thought she might have a sticker in her foot but could never find anything… and she wouldn’t limp all the time.  She would occasionally get out so I thought maybe she caught her leg or foot on the fence.  She’s also VERY clumsy..so I just figured it was par for the course.  But as the limp increased, I took her in October to see the vet and asked about the limping. They thought that it might be a torn crutiate? (don’t know if I spelled that right). How much is that going to cost I wondered? (since this dopey dog had been quite the high maintenance dog so far). $2000.00? what? We don’t have that kind of money! So we treated it with pain meds and it progressively got worse. We tried to set back money but it never amounted to much, we had Christmas and that didn’t help either. This last February I finally just said screw it, she wasn’t eating well and she laid around all the time.. it was obvious she didn’t feel well… her knee was swelling more….. I had to do something and I knew we were getting Tax money back. So I took her to a doctor that took a special interest in orthopedics, although he is not board certified, he came highly recommended and fit better into our price range for the surgery we thought she needed.  After he did xrays he said… good news.. you are not going to need surgery for Bella. YAY! (so I thought) We decided it could be 3 things…1. a break that never healed right and has become infected.  2.  a fungal infection or 3.  possibly cancer.. but that was a remote possibility she’s so young….. so we decided to treat it as thought it was a break that had become infected. We began a treatment of Clavamox and with in days I noticed a difference in how she was acting and how much she was eating. It was looking promising. The “old” Vet that had referred me to this “new” Vet. strongly felt like I should have a biopsy done. We were able to come up with the money (thank goodness for early tax return) and did it.  The results came back inconclusive. CRAP! That’s alot of money to spend and not get more concrete results. So we kept giving her the Clavamox x 6 weeks. Between the 5th & 6th week she started to not eat as much and slow down again…then on the last few days of the 6 week Antibiotic her knee began to swell up even more than before..  with in 4 days it was huge and she was not moving much.. it was bad.! I took her on Tuesday the 12th and he said.. with as much problems as she’s having we need to amputate…..or even worse consider euthanizing.  I left her there that night for Amputation.