[Gpdd] [ANNOUNCE] Today my Vito Lee Died

[Bella Reich]

This morning around 10:30 a.m. (EST) my beautiful boy piggie, Vito Lee, passed away in my arms.  I brought him home to live with us 5 years ago on Valentine’s Day.  He was most likely about 3 months old at the time.  He had been slowing down a bit these past few months but still was very much his own guy!  He had not eaten his meal overnight when I went to give him breakfast yesterday morning.  His breathing was labored but not bad and I did hand feed him throughout the day and give him water.  I have lived through this before with my other pigs and I know they go down hill fast.  Most likely he hadn’t been feeling well for awhile and hid it from me so well!  I held him in my arms off and on yesterday...telling him how much I loved him, kissing him and telling him that he was not alone and if he needed to go it was ok.  I did not want to put him through a vet visit where he would be pumped up with liquids, given meds and sent home for me to try to syringe food and water to him.  I have done this with pasts pigs and it is terrible for them and for me and in the end, death still comes.  

I finally went to bed at around 1:30 in the morning after holding him close and kissing and hugging him.    I had had a migraine all day and took meds and needed to sleep.  He was in his pigloo this morning with terribly raspy breathing.  I tried to syringe feed him some mashed up, liquified pellets and some water.  That didn’t go well at all.  I set him on a towel on the bathroom counter for a sec to get tissues to wipe him up a bit and he fell over on his side and then began clawing and running and ran right up the front of my robe where he gasped a few more breathes and died.  I kissed him and hugged him during his last few moments and hope he knew I was there and that he was very much loved and would not be in pain anymore.  It tears me apart to see my gp’s in such distress at the end.  I have been with all 4 of them when they died and it never gets easier.

I will call the vet tomorrow to see about cremation as our yard here in central NY state is frozen solid so no burial is possible.  I have one of my 4 pigs buried here at home.  Now Vito is resting in a shoe box in my attic nestled in tissue paper.  I can’t be without pigs for more than a day or so and will go out tomorrow after work to look for a new baby to welcome into my home while Vito will rest in a special place in my heart along with my other late piggies....Chocolate, Parker & Peter Lee.  

Sadly signing off....Bella Reich...mom of the beautiful Vito Lee