I'm Feeling Better, Miko's Feeling Worse

Finally, after almost a week, I can breathe relatively normally today. I woke up feeling crappy again, called my Dr and got an answering machine when I tried to make an appointment. So, I decided to hop in the car and go over to my chiropractor's office. I hadn't been there in almost a month, and I had a terrible headache to go along with my sinus problems and breathing problems. She adjusted my back and neck - way more cracking going on there than I'd like to hear - but it felt so good! My chiropractor uses kinesiology, so she kept making me try and lift my arm against her hand while she touched these vials of stuff, then when she figured out exactly where it was affecting my body, and what vial affected it the most, she had me hold that vial there for ten minutes. After the ten minutes was up, I was easily able to provide resistance to her when she asked me to do the arm thing again. I looked at the vial and it said, "Toxic Chemicals #11." Seems I was still having lingering effects from Y's deodorant last week. My breathing improved throughout the day, I was even able to take Miko for a short walk and then we took Miko and Michael to the dog park for about thirty minutes. I might even be able to get a decent night's sleep tonight!

Speaking of Miko, I had the vet bring over an ultrasound veterinarian on Friday afternoon. She was able to show us that Miko's tumor had grown considerably in size just in the past two weeks. It has also metastasized into at least his liver. There were several internal organs that she couldn't see because the tumor either surrounds them or has destroyed them (pancreas, etc). In her opinion, euthanizing is the only option. She said even if we do pay for $2-3k surgery, he would only get relief from the pressure of the tumor, and not a cure. We'd be back in the same spot in just a couple of months. She told us that in her opinion he only has maybe 3 weeks left before the tumor completely takes over his abdomen and/or ruptures. The tumor is bleeding internally as well, so that is causing him a lot of pain. I fear that if we don't do something soon, the tumor will rupture and he will bleed to death internally. So, after calling Bill, we decided in just a few minutes to let Miko go to the Rainbow Bridge and be with Nala Bear, Ginger and Odie on a fitting Friday the 13th. Until then, we're loading him up on painkillers (he gets 4-5 times the amount of pain medicine Nala got on even her worst days), and spoiling the crap out of him. Car rides, trips to the dog park and walks around the lake to visit with the ducks who seem to know exactly when we're coming around the corner! Miko has been such a good dog, and a wonderful ambassador for the Labrador breed (yes, there are annoying labs, too - ours is named Goofy). I know his spirit wants to stay here, but his body is just shutting down on him.

I even took him with me on Sunday morning when I went to pick up Bill so that he could do some honey-do's around this house. He wanted me to pay some of his bills, so I told him he had to work it off. When we got to the old house (Miko lived there for seven years), Miko just jumped out of the truck, and walked right through the garage and into the house without even acknowledging Bill. He took himself a "look-see" around the old house, and then came out to say "Hi!" to Bill. I think maybe he was looking for Nala Bear. She's only been gone six months. It's sad to have to put another animal down again, but they were best buddies in life for over 10 years, and now they can play all day at the Rainbow Bridge together.

Natalie

TX

(Just did this four years ago, now here we're at it again! We had to put Ginger down in November 2005 and Odie in February 2006.)