Making The Most Of Life: Daisy Mae, Bullmastiff Extraordinaire

I write this post with an extremely heavy heart. After a more than two year battle with Osteosarcoma, Daisy Mae, the Bullmastiff extraordinaire, gave up her fight and went to be with her brother Pig where she now has four healthy, pain free legs.

If you have been following me for some time you may be familiar with Daisy's story. If you want to revisit her journey or if you haven't read it before, you can click here and read from the bottom up. I warn you, it was not a fun journey and at times I am sure it will be as hard to read as it was to write.

I am still not ready to write down all of the details of the last three weeks, and to be honest, I may never get there. And the final moments are for Shawn and me alone. But for now, here is what the last week looked like.

On Easter Sunday I knew bad things were starting to happen. I had a bit of a breakdown and then told Shawn I wanted Daisy to go see her vet. They were able to get her in on Tuesday in the afternoon. All we wanted were painkillers in the hope that she would be able to move with less pain. We were set that we would not run any tests or take any x-rays.

We were not able to see the vet who was with Daisy during her Osteosarcoma diagnosis but we were able to see the vet who worked with Pig in his last month so that helped me through our visit. She might not really know Daisy but she has been through two horrible events with me and she knows me.

Daisy walked into the vet willingly. Well, not really willingly. Hmm… let's just say she walked into the vet. We were able to get her on the scale to learn she was 90 pounds, which was great since the last time she was weighed she was 85, but then she turned and hightailed it right to the front door. "I am out of here!" is what she was saying but do you blame her? Poor girl got her leg chopped off and then was filled with poison the last time she went to see a doctor.

The Doctor did a quick once over, drew a little bit of blood to make sure the pain medication wouldn’t shut down her kidneys, and we were out of there. None too soon if you ask Daisy.

The first night we gave her two full pain killers which just served to make her very loopy. She laid on the floor watching the cats play for over an hour and then would stare off into space with her glassy eyes.

On Wednesday morning she was feeling really good and scarfed down her breakfast. She ate the next three meals with no trouble which was remarkable since she had been eating about every third meal for the past two weeks. She was even able to drink some water and get out the back door without help.

Only that was short lived. By Thursday night the pain killers were not strong enough to allow her to stand at her bowl to eat and by Friday morning she was laying on the floor in the living room refusing to move.

I was able to get her to take her pills on Friday morning and on Friday night. She would only go out the front door, do her business, and come right back in. We picked up a dog bed for the floor so she didn’t have to climb onto the couch any more and that became her haven for the rest of her time with us.

Saturday morning was horrible. She got off the bed and fell. She walked down the hall and tripped over very rug. She made it to the living room where she collapsed and stayed until Shawn made her go out the front door. She tripped her way down the stairs with Shawn holding most of her weight up by her harness. It wasn't long before we were certain she had damaged her right leg or spine so badly she could not longer walk.

We don't know exactly what happened. She might have hurt her self falling. She might have grown a tumor in her leg that was big enough to cause uncontrollable pain.

What we do know is she could no longer squat to pee. She could no longer walk. She could only stand for a few seconds at a time. She had no interest in eating. And the pain killers were doing nothing to help.

So we had to make the difficult decision. Let her suffer or let her have peace.

We chose peace.