Rough Day

Poor Marlee has had a rough day. She was clearly in a lot of pain this morning and could not stand up even when we helped her get on her feet. (she crumbled like a rag doll if we let go)

She has definitely been on a decline in recent weeks. She has less and less ability to get up from the ground or floor, and she sleeps probably 85% of every day. We bought her some doggie boots to help give her better traction on the floor, and that helped some, but her muscles have seemed very weak.

So, by today we were really wondering if we were going to find out that putting her to sleep was the best remaining solution. Which was very hard to face.

My husband and two of our children took Marlee to the vet. He gave a lot of validity to the idea of it being very reasonable to put her to sleep, but also offered a couple medication options as possibilities that it might help her feel better. From his standpoint, her arthritis is getting worse so she just has a lot of pain. Also, she had a mouth infection (we had no idea!) and now she had an antibiotic for that, but the vet wants her to come in for extensive cleaning, radiographs, etc. which I was shocked to find out would cost quite possibly over $500. I almost fell over when they told me that.

So. She has her new meds. It is a nice day so she is enjoying the sunshine and breeze outside, where she prefers to be. We will likely face some challenges related to her new meds (increased incontinence being one of them, her needing to stay in the house more--which she resists--is another one).

Other than waiting to see what happens, I don't know how to make these decisions. If the meds help her pain, that's great, but she still has a lot of problems that make her life less of how she seems to like it. We could do the dental work if we had the money, but that will require her to be under anesthesia for awhile which I am concerned about just because of her overall health. I have some very sad kids right now, because they are concerned about Marlee dying. I don't think it is fair to have her continue on with pain in order to lessen ours, but I also don't want to make a hasty decision that is not right.

From the start we said that we felt Marlee deserved a life with love and care, for whatever amount of time she had left. I guess I was hoping that the decision might be made by Marlee and fate, rather than by us.