I'm having such a hard time sleeping tonight. I keep waking up every hour and I'm still in such shock. I just want to talk to someone, so I thought I would just post my rambling thoughts here. I am so thankful for pet talk. I am reminded of why this is such a great community. My friends in the real world don't really understand, I don't think. I am so thankful that I can come here and type out my grief and get it out maybe? I don't know.

i was remember when we got him, and what a strange coincidence it all was. The thread where we got him is here and it is post #57. He was so right for us, he fit in here perfectly. I can't believe it is barely over 3 years later, and he is gone.

We went down last night to say our goodbyes. Our vet cried with us. She is a great lady and I think she is hurting just as much as we are. I think she feels responsible because she missed some clues. They are going to do an autopsy/biopsy at their expense to try and get some answers for us. It was hard to see him, so hard. He was peaceful though. It looked like all I had to do was snap my fingers, and he would jump up and want to play. But he was gone, really gone.

Right now, things just aren't making sense -- the antibiotic that he was on does NOT have a side effect of liver issues. It does have side effects of eye issues, and Emm wasn't suffering from any of those side effects at all. So we are now wondering if he had an underlying issue that was causing the bladder problems, but was also a systemic problem? I guess time will tell. But I would think that something would have shown up in all the bloodwork we had done at the beginning. Or maybe it was something entirely different like an intestinal blockage. I don't know why they didn't just do xrays right off the bat to rule that out? I think its because they thought that he wasn't holding down food, but holding down water.

Dr. C. told us a little bit more about her last few minutes with him. She was at the office until 10:30 that night, and took some time to give him some water and take him out. He puked up the water, but peed fine. She then went and gave him fluids under his skin (they had decided to put off giving him the IV until the next morning) when she noticed that his gums were bleeding. This is also a sign of problems with the liver, I guess. She gave him a shot of Vitamin K, and put him in his crate. She said that he was resting peacefully. He died sometime during the night in his sleep. She said he wasn't frantic or seeming to be suffering. I guess I take comfort in that. I just wish so much that he wasn't alone. If I had known, if I had only known that there was a possibility of him going, I would have camped out with him.

How do you tell another dog that his buddy isn't coming back?? Malone is searching, looking for Emerson to come back. He barks at any little noise outside, but not because he is worried about the noise. Its like he keeps looking for Emerson to come bark with him, and when he doesn't come he just lays down with his nose in his paws again. Last night, he laid right down on Emerson's favorite toy, a stuffed birdhouse, that was still laying in the living room where Em had left it. They loved to play tug-of-war with that thing, and I think Malone was missing his play partner. There were a million other places he could have laid down, but he kept coming back to that spot. Mark was late coming home from a meeting last night, and Malone was so excited when the car pulled up. But as soon as Mark came in alone, he got all sad again, and just laid down with his head in his paws again. he wasn't excited to see Mark at all.

There were two things that happened yesterday that were especially hard. I had a whole bunch of errands to run. The first place I went to, I pulled out my wallet, and there at the front of all my pictures was one of Emerson. I couldn't get back to the car fast enough before the tears came again. And another errand was to go to the town office to renew their rabies tags. I had written the check out for $13 last Thursday or something, and it wasn't until I got there that I realized I only needed half of that amount. Why yesterday????? Why did I have to go to the town office yesterday?? Couldn't it have been last week or next week? So I stood in line feeling so stupid as I tried to explain to the lady that I needed to pay cash instead of the check I had written out, and that it was only one dog, not two. It was horrible.

I want to post some pictures. I have been going through the albums on my computer and there are so many great pictures that I have posted already, and some that I never posted. So I would like to do that, and will work on that today.

If you read through this whole thing, thank you. if not, I totally understand. Thank you again for all the kind words, thoughts and prayers. I really don't know what I would do without pet talk.