Minnie started vomitting and couldn't keep food nor water down that day, after being a little lethargic the day before. Early that Monday morning (~4:30 AM) when I took her out to pee she just dropped like a rock after taking one step and I thought she was dead. We finally stabilized her but she was still vomiting. We got her to our vet a couple of hours later and he said he'd give her an IV for dehydration and wanted to do blood tests for kidney and liver damage.
Unfortunately his initial diagnosis was dead-on (as it always had been before), and her kidney levels were horrible. We had just had them tested a year before and things were great, but a lot can change quickly when you have an older dog I guess. It was killing me to see her in pain; as someone who has had a kidney stone before, I know how bad kidney pain can be. My magnificent dog's run cannot end like this! I thought. I can't have her in pain like this.
Thankfully Minnie made a very strong recovery over the next two nights, and I got to come and hang out with my best friend for a few hours on Tuesday before letting our vet keep her for the night again. Until then we hadn't heard her bark, but she got angry and started yelling something that must have translated to "What is this crap? You're not brining me home!?!?!". We took her home on Wednesday with strict orders to make her drink more than she would possibly do on her own, along with some antibiotics, antacid, another medicine I can't remember, and some wet food for dogs with gastrointestinal problems.
To ensure she drank a lot I mixed her water with a low sodium chicken broth, which she lapped up. I'd put 5 oz of water with her meals. Thankfully she absolutely loved her wet dog food, so I was able to con her into drinking the heavy amounts of water our vet told us would be critical for her survival. There was no way I was going to let her die a painful death like that if there was anything I could do about it.
I stayed with her 24 hours a day, because anything less was unacceptable with her at such a critical and dire stage. She fought like a champ, but was having mini seizures that looked like they'd last half a second or so. They seemed to be worst when she was taking in fluids, so I knew her kidneys were in really bad shape. I guessed she only had days at that point, and I was determined to enjoy every second I could with her.
Minnie was still pretty happy for the most part. When she'd take a big drink sometimes her legs would go unsteady and she'd fall, but I'd have my hands around her to catch her. She still loved to give kisses, still barked at me like 'where do you think you're going?' when I'd go to the bathroom or fix her meals (or mine, lol). I had to confine her to a room where I knew she couldn't jump up on anything to keep her at ground level with minimal activity, per doctor's orders.
On Wednesday night she had a seizure for about 15 seconds, and we rushed her to the emergency room wondering how critical it was. Our vet had warned us about the possibility since he had seen the mini 1/2 second seizures she was having while in his care. But Minnie was in a pretty fragile condition and he didn't want to put her on another harsh medicine while we trying to bring her back from the brink of death due to her kidney problems. The ER vet wasn't our own (he was out of town that day), and we just didn't want to consider the drugs the emergency vet said were for longer, more violent, or clustering seizures. The 15 second seizure she had wasn't violent by any means; she lifted her head up three times towards the sky the way yorkies always do when you scratch their butts, but it was certainly involuntary (she recovered pretty quickly... maybe a minute in that dazed post-seizure state).
I called my main vet and explained what happened, and told him I would like see him either Friday or Saturday based on how she did this Thursday night. No seizures Thursday, so I told him I'd like to come in Saturday so that I'd have another day to observe her sleep. No seizure again on Friday, but her shaking when she drank was getting worse that day. This really hurt me since she looked about 85% on Thursday. Saturday morning came and I brought her in for a blood test as well as a urine test.
It had been a few days since she had a test, and the doc, myself, and my family were hoping against hope that the bad results were something acute, like eating something poisonous. But the measured specific gravity in her urine test we did that morning confirmed that her kidneys were just barely working and the only thing that was keeping her alive was the constant flow of water we were giving her. I was heartbroken, but he said with careful feeding and water intake we could possibly keep her alive and with a reasonable quality of life for a while. Because she was clear of the full-blown seizures the previous two nights and since the one on Wednesday wasn't a crazy violent clustered one, he said he really didn't want put her on something that could interfere with her recovery, but that he would if things started getting worse on that front.
With the knowledge about her kidney problems being permanent now, I guess it started to make sense to me why the drinking was causing her some problems. Nevertheless, we had to keep feeding her liquids because we were not letting her die that painful death that almost took her that previous Sunday night/Monday morning. Minnie remained in good spirits and we had a fun day just hanging out and watching playoff basketball, of course with lots of trips outside for her to pass all that water.
Minnie survived some very bad seizures on Saturday night, but the details are just too painful to go into so I won't. The next morning she once again looked great, except when drinking water again. Knowing it was likely her last day on this great Earth and that her daytimes were always pretty happy and stable we took her on a nice car ride, I got her some chicken breast for a meal (her favorite food in the world), and we just spent all day playing with her, hugging her, kissing her, etc. Then about 8:15PM she got a really bad seizure again, and we knew it was over. We had to make the most bitter of bitter decisions when she just couldn't pull out of it. I was able to make the long drive back from the ER but broke out in the saddest cry of my life holding her body in my arms when I reached home. They say it's easier when you have time to prepare (and I had a week now), but they are full of s---. At sunrise we dug her a grave in the back yard, kissed her goodbye, and saved a lock of hair to help us remember the greatest friend a person could have. We buried her in a favorite place she loved to dig for worms when out gardening, and it's a location we can see from all the windows facing into the backyard. At least I can say her last day on Earth was a happy one, and one we will forever cherish after she pulled through that awful Saturday night. It was such an amazing gift to us to have just one more day with her with our sweetheart happy and in good spirits.
I so miss feeling her little heart beat next to mine when she would lie on my chest. I have had a lot of amazing dogs in my life, but none of them have just grabbed my heart and never let go the way Minnie did. I wish those so dear to us could live forever, but it just doesn't work that way. Minnie died because she was one of the lucky ones. Almost everyone else never even gets to see the magnificent light of this great planet. She struck the lottery when the sperm cell that was her beat out all the other little proto-yorkies to fertilize the egg she was born from. And then I think she struck the lottery again when she found us; we certainly did; that's for sure. In the end you just can't complain that you got $100 million from your winning ticket instead of $200 million. I will deeply love this amazing companion until the day I join her in the ground. My baby is gone, but I am so much richer for these years I had with her. There isn't a dollar amount in this world I would have traded a year of our relationship for. I'm so grateful to our vet who was able to buy us an extra week when we thought she was gone.
R.I.P my sweet Minnie Bear
A few quick photos of my sweetheart (she never liked standing still for pics, so couldn't get her face clearly this exceedingly rare snowy morning in South Texas) http://i.imgur.com/p7bZaZ9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AUqonrH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NNSjq5l.jpg