How to say this?

Our girl is gone.

She passed away this morning.

Oh, Kady.

The Best Girl Ever

Progress This Hour

Just this minute got back from visiting. She is much more alert and active today. Grumpy, even. Her protein levels came up (a good thing) Her coagulation numbers are stable. She ate a whole jar of baby food this morning and about half a jar for me while I was there. She sneezed and tried to pull her O2 tube out of her nose. When a little Yorkie walked by, she whipped her head around and gave him the stink eye.

She is, however, still in the Critical Care Unit, on oxygen, on a feeding tube and gravely ill. So . . . more waiting and hoping.

Tuesday Night

Kady is looking much more alert today. She raised her head and seemed to know me. But she is still in rough shape. Fluid collecting in her body cavity is putting pressure on her diaphragm which is making her breathing labored, so they are giving her supplemental oxygen.

Her protein levels are still low so they gave her albumen and then they will check her levels again tomorrow. The albumen treatment is pretty much the last thing they can do. So there's a lot riding on that test tomorrow. Dr. Tuttle says she is showing clinical improvement, and that means it is reasonable to continue providing support. If she declines clinically, that's a pretty good indication that it's enough.

Kady's Complications

Kady's biggest challenge right now is disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). It is a pathological process in the body where the blood starts to coagulate throughout the whole body. This depletes the body of its platelets and coagulation factors, resulting in the paradoxic situation in which there is a high risk for simultaneous catastrophic thrombosis as well as massive hemorrhage.

So the two dangers are edema and general seepage and the possibility that she will start throwing clots.

Shit.

Dr. Colopy says DIC can happen when a patient has a "full body assault" and big surgery like Kady had certainly qualifies. One of the lab results they are waiting for is a coagulation test, and that will tell if the DIC is resolving.

This just SUCKS.

Can't Stand It.

Nothing definitive this morning. Sarah, Kady's student, said they didn't have the lab work back yet, but that Kady is sitting up and she seems more alert.

evening visit

After a reasonably good few hours of work I got in the truck and drove over to the vet school. This morning her roommates in the CCU were an elderly corgi and a rabbit. Yes, a rabbit. This evening the place was rockin’ .

Although she was sleeping and snoring when I got there, the critical care nurses said she had been sitting up and looking around at all the commotion, earlier in the day. Courtney said she was looking better. I felt like she was doing better. Teeny steps. She is getting a small, constant supply of nutrition, Guantanamo style, via a nasal tube.

So many people are pulling for her. I know she can do it. She has lots of things to do still.

GDV Sucks

So this this is a pretty good explanation of what happened to Kady.
I spent an hour or so with her this morning and she seems to be resting comfortably. Her protein levels are low and she has a condition called DIC which involves blood coagulation (confusingly, both too much and not enough) which, if it doesn’t resolve, is a deal breaker.

When I was there she had many visitors; she is obviously well-loved by many. She has so many more people to meet and charm. She has much work left to do. I have always had this inexplicable idea that she would live to be 13.

I hope I have the character and fortitude to let her go when/if it’s the right thing to do. I have a lot of people at the vet school who will help me know. OK, I’m going to head over there now.

Kady's Emergency

I thought I had thought through all the scenarios for dealing with Kady’s mortality. There’s the cancer. There’s her age. But I really got smacked upside the head with a 2 x 4 last night when I rushed her to the vet school after-hours service.

She underwent emergency surgery for a flipped stomach. I have to look up the proper name for it again, but it’s something that happens in large deep-chested breeds. The stomach fills with air and twists over. It’s very serious. It’s what Rupert (the Searles’s big male St. Bernard) died from.

I had basically 2 minutes to decide between surgery or euthanizing her. I chose the surgery.

Apparently I discovered the problem shortly after it happened. We had a great day Saturday at the farmers market. Such a great day, in fact, that we stayed down there until about 11. Kady has been feeling great since her fistula broke through and started draining. She was able to walk quite a bit more than she has so far this year at the market, so later when she seemed off I thought it was just that she was tired from the big day.

Anyway, I worked outside in the yard pretty much all day once we came home. I had Kady and Che with me until late afternoon when the daily dog walkers started coming through and Kady was getting barky. So I put them in the house. Kady got on the couch and fell asleep, Che went to his bed and fell asleep. Good tired dogs I thought.

I ordered pizza for dinner and kept working in the yard. I went inside with dinner when the pizza guy delivered it. That’s when I noticed that Kady didn’t seem right. She was on the floor and just didn’t look right. She was panting heavily, she was sort of limp and it seemed like her heart was racing. As I was listening to her heart, I thought to myself, “I don’t really know what her heart is supposed to sound like…) So I called the emergency service at the vet school and as I was talking, I noticed that her stomach was bloated and hard.

I got her to emergency in about 10 minutes–I was so freaked out I actually carried her to the car.

Once we got there, they took her back and started working on her and diagnosed the problem. The surgery proceeded and I stayed until she was out of surgery–about midnight. The surgery went as well as could be expected–they didn’t find any cancers or necrotic tissue. They took her spleen out, too, because it had gotten twisted with the stomach.

So it’s touch and go, wait and see for now. I saw her this morning and she was very sedated, but she opened her eyes and I think she knew it was me. Dr. Calopy called me this evening and said that all her numbers are good, but that she’s troubled by Kady’s attitude; she isn’t perking up, she doesn’t want to try to stand up. I am not too troubled by that, because it has always taken her about 48 hours to shake off anesthesia and get back to herself. Someone will call with an update tomorrow morning and I will see her again.

Dr. Calopy said she would be honest with me about when/if she thinks it’s too much. If they think they have to go back in, that will be too much, for example.

So we are in that most uncomfortable of situations, neither here nor there.

If anyone reads this, please do whatever you do to encourage a favorable outcome for my beloved girl.