[Gpdd] Rainbow Bridge: Cinnamon Bear

[Guineapigfilms at aol.com]

Dear Corinne and Michael,

I am Alyssa's mother. She showed me the GPDD today with your poem in it, and 
I couldn't help but cry.

I was in the same position that you are in now, just a few short months ago.

Our beloved older Yorkie, Squwigr, (almost age 12) had a problem with dry-eye 
syndrome, and his eyes were very sore and painful. He wouldn't let us touch 
them to try to get the "gook" out from under them, or to use eye drops. On at 
least one occasion we'd had to have the vet clean his eyes under general 
anesthesia, which I didn't think was good for him at all. The vet advised us to use 
a tranquilizer pill when we bathed his eyes, so that he wouldn't be too upset. 
So the night before Halloween I gave him the prescribed pill in a bit of 
cheese. I still remember how happy he was when he got the cheese. His little tail 
wagged so fast! 

Despite the tranquilizer, Squwigr fought his bath and resisted me touching 
his eye, to the point of snapping at me and then actually biting my hand. For 
the first time ever, I yelled at him that he was a "bad dog." You have no idea 
how those two words haunt me to this day. Because he wasn't at all a bad dog; 
he was the best, most loving dog, ever.

I had to battle him all the way through the cleaning of his eyes, and finally 
he seemed to give up, making my job easier.

After the bath, I felt physically and emotionally drained, and also very 
upset, because I had been the instrument of my dog being miserable. Little did I 
know what was yet to come.

After the bath Squwigr wouldn't let me come near him, fearing that I would 
resume torturing him. When I tried to pet him, he moved away. He was all hunched 
over, moving very slowly, and breathing raspily. Because I had never given 
him a tranquilizer before, I assumed all these symptoms were because he was so 
"out of it."

But Alyssa and I got scared when the raspy breathing continued, and after 
several calls to the vet's answering machine service, the substitute vet-on-call, 
and two emergency vet hospitals, we decided to drive Squwigr to the closest 
emergency vet hospital, which was an hour away.

During the drive I held Squwigr and told him he was a good dog. But I was 
scared to death. He seemed to have given up.

At the hospital they said I should never have given him a tranquilizer before 
bathing him, because he could have aspirated water or shampoo and gotten 
aspiration pneumonia. They put him in an oxygen tank, and made us leave. They 
wouldn't even let us wait in the waiting room, so we had to drive back home, an 
hour away from him. Squwigr was a dog with "separation anxiety" issues, and I 
knew he'd want me to be there. I didn't even get to tell him good-bye.

Early the next morning, the emergency vet's office called to tell us that 
he'd stopped breathing, but they'd revived him. I asked if we could come visit 
him, and the vet on duty said "yes." But he died before we could even get out to 
the car.

If only I could go back in time and not have given him the pill...I trusted 
his vet to prescribe the right thing, and thought I was trying to help Squwigr 
feel better. I knew he'd be miserable during the bath, but thought he'd wake 
up the next morning, with the gunk all gone from his eyes, and feel so much 
better and happier.

One of the emergency vets said that he didn't think that Squwigr had 
aspirated that much water and that he probably had something else going on, like lung 
cancer. He wanted to do an autopsy. But I couldn't stand the thought of more 
stuff being done to him. Our emergency vet bill already topped $1000 for the 
short time that Squwigr was there, on oxygen. An autopsy wouldn't help Squwigr, 
and I don't think I could have lived with myself if the report had said that 
he definitely died from aspiration pneumonia.

I want to tell you that, with the passing of time, your grief will lessen to 
the point that you can go on with the motions of daily living. It will never 
go away, but neither will the beautiful memories you have of your beloved pet. 
When you balance the two, I think you'll agree that it is better to have loved 
and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Love and Wheeeeeeeeps,

Nancy

(Alyssa's mom)
http://hometown.aol.com/guineapigfilms