Slowly saying goodbye

Most of you who know me know that when I got married, perhaps even when I met Kevin, I adopted a wonderful dog named Coda into my life. She quickly became my dog. She always chose me to sit down and cuddle. She wanted me to play with her. Truly, she is Kevin's first dog and we've been talking lately about how she has been there through some of the most formative years in his life. I dare say, even though I've only known her for four and half, I feel the same way.

Five days ago, Coda had a seizure. In the last three days, she's had seven or more. It has been a very frightening experience for me. I have a nephew who deals with seizures too, and I can tell you that neither is fun to watch. One is supposed to be calm to help calm the seizures, but I can't help but burst into tears. The fact that these have come on so quickly make me fear the worst. The times between the seizures when she is her the "real Coda" are fewer and further between.

I think partly I relive the time with my nephew when she has these episodes. She loses control, and I can't explain to her why or help her see the signs to let her know to relax. My nephew was less than a year old when he started having seizures, so explaining even in simple terms wasn't helpful. Coda seems to frightened her too, when she can't walk afterwards, or do other basic things like swallowing. I am frightened to leave her alone at all during the day; I can't imagine anything wanting to wake up from such an experience alone.

And yet, the longer this goes on, the more disoriented she is. She does feel she is alone. She doesn't recognize us at first. Today's was the scariest, as she spent a long time pacing, unable to control any part of her body, and it took an hour before she realized that water was there for her to drink. Her basic instincts are taking too long to be instinctual.

We are on some last chance medication to see if we can improve the quality of her life, reducing seizures and trying to get the toxins out of her body. I am trying, as is Kevin, to make sure she is comfortable, walking beside here anytime she is up and walking, laying beside her as we can, petting her to let her know we're there. It's just so hard to communicate the depth of love we feel for her, and making these kinds of decisions about her life and death feel like they leave us short handed. We don't feel like we know what to do. Putting her down feels like leaves us without the time we wanted to communicate our love and care. Yet not putting her down means she might be suffering all the more. We are going to wait the night to see what we have to do next, but we know that if it is not tomorrow, it will have to be sooner than we want.