[Gpdd] MISC: Kristine, Samantha, and Faith

[New Dominant II]

The main reason I stopped reading piggie lists two years ago was because I
lost Kristie unexpectedly.  She was only 3.5 years and was healthy.  Only
six months before, I had lost my dear little Mikki, though I kind of knew
that one was coming.  I'm not sure why Kristie's passing hit me so hard, but
I got quite depressed.  She wasn't a cuddle pig and usually wanted to stay
in their enclosure, but she always wanted to be petted and she was always so
trusting.

Well, just a couple weeks later, I lost Faith.  I only had her a few days
(6/4/05-6/12/05).  I had gotten her a few days after I lost Kristine, and I
got Charity a couple days after I got Faith.  I kept the two of them
together, and noticed that Charity was losing weight.  I put her on CC and
vit. C water and she rebounded after a few days.  I thought we were out of
the woods, then all of a sudden Faith started breathing hard, had congested
lungs, and a runny nose on Saturday morning.  Vet was booked and had several
emergencies waiting, so there was no chance to get her in.  I put her on
Sulfatrim (also fed her CC and vit. C water) and hoped she'd be okay by her
Monday morning appointment.  She seemed less congested Saturday night and
her nose was just moist, so I thought she'd be okay.  I found her gone
Sunday morning when I got up to take care of her.

The biggest surprise came last October.  Well, Sammie had been having a
tough year.  She had an abscess (lymph nodes) at the beginning of 2006 and
it took a long time to heal up.  So, several times throughout the year, I
hand fed her pellets when her weight started going down.  I found it quite
easy to shove pellets in her mouth after I learned how to bypass her teeth
... she even gained quite a bit of weight.  She also had a few lumps that
were removed in the spring, but we didn't find out the results as the lab
lost the paperwork.  My vet did get an unlabeled result for a mammal that
reported a metastatic tumor, but he didn't think it was hers.  I kind of
wonder if it was, as I read that if you remove the smaller tumors, it
triggers the main one to start growing.  Well, at the end of September (29),
my vet felt what he thought was a fast growing ovarian cyst (wasn't there
six months earlier) and wanted to remove it.  But when we took her in on
October 2 for surgery, my vet found a large nasty tumor that was connected
to a major artery.

I had given him my work number as I figured all he'd do was call me to tell
me that he trimmed her teeth (I suspected they might be overgrown) and the
cyst was removed.  But as twenty third graders sat bewildered, whispering
"Is Mrs. Barr crying?", and after asking several questions, I finally
realized that my vet was asking for permission to let her drift off to
sleep.  Shortly after 1 p.m., my little Sammie was gone, and I hadn't even
told her goodbye.

In hindsight, I realized that all her problems that year probably were
symptoms of the cancer that was invading her body, but not even my vet knew
it was there.  I was happy to take care of her, and I hope the pain and
discomfort wasn't too great.