Goodbye, Goldie

Yesterday morning we had to put Goldie down. Despite two surgeries and three kinds of chemo, her cancer kept progressing, and for the last month or so we were just keeping her symptoms from making her miserable.

This week she'd begun falling more, as the tumour on her back foot got worse and worse (she had about 20 counted tumours). And yesterday morning a tumour on her chest decided to start bleeding, and it would not stop and she could not calm down (she was so distressed she didn't finish her breakfast).

Cancerous tumours have very high blood flow. When they get big and start to bleed, chances are they will continue to bleed and will not stop. That was the case for Goldie. Hers got worse and worse over just a few hours, and was not expected to get better. In fact, the vet expressed some surprise that the larger and more malignant tumour on her lower belly had not started bleeding yet.

So we had her put down. It was very hard to say goodbye to our dear friend, construction supervisor, and kitchen cleanup crew. But any more time would have been for us, not her.

May you all know as good a dog.

(I'm turning off comments because as sweet at the condolences are, we are all a bit raw right now.)

posted by ayse on 10/18/13