Saturday, December 14, 2013

One Week Ago Today...

Benny woke with the other 2 Pups, went outside for their Potty Break, came in and sat down in the recliner with Hubby for their usual time together.  At some point after that, Benny started favoring his right rear leg and shortly thereafter we saw the Vet {about 10:30} to find out what had happened.  Nothing definite, but X-Rays were scheduled for the following Monday.  The day wore on and Benny got progressively worse.  By the time I knew something...
needed to be done for him, the Vet's office was long since closed for the day.  So, we called the ER & Critical Care Hospital and took Benny there.  I had all sorts of thoughts about what was going on with him, but didn't get a chance to share those thoughts with anyone, they wanted to quickly examine Benny.  You can read Benny's story Here, if you haven't seen it.  To make a long story really short, Benny died last Saturday night at 10pm.


A young Pup, only 4 1/2 years old and he had been in Great Health!

This is how my week has been, just dealing with it all.  I have questions, like why he was so sick?  How could he deteriorate so quickly?  How could I have helped him sooner?  What should I have done differently?  Did the doctor earlier in the day miss something?  Did the ER doctor miss something - some sort of suitable treatment?  What if we insisted on further treatment?  What in the world happened to our boy?  Would he be alive if he was tended to sooner?  Even the question - Did I make the right Decision to let him go?  

The What If's and Why's are really getting to me.

No autopsy was done on Benny...it wasn't brought up and I was not thinking too clearly after a couple of hours watching our Boy go downhill.

In reading and researching several of the possibilities the ER doctor had listed on Benny's Final Report, almost every single one of his symptoms is listed under GME or NME.  It's very scarey, but helps me answer questions.

  • Granulomatous meningocencephalomyelitis (GME)
  • Necrotizing Encephalitis (NE)
There are no tests to definitively diagnose these diseases other than direct brain biopsy or autopsy examination. Many reports on GME and necrotizing encephalitis suggest that these are inevitably progressive and fatal disorders. These studies are usually based on autopsy reports and therefore all examined animals have died from the disease. We have seen a large number of animals with idiopathic encephalitis respond to immunosuppression and so a final diagnosis cannot be made. GME and necrotizing encephalitis may simply reflect one of the most severe forms of immune-mediated encephalitis. There has also been some speculation that GME may represent a form of the cancer lymphoma.
As you can see from this...I consciously KNOW I did the right thing...my ♥ is just having trouble accepting it.
This is from a person who commented on one of my comments about Benny...I thought it was so beautiful!
Please continue to pray for all of us.

1 comment:

  1. Good Morning Jan, the comment is beautiful. There will always be the what if's and whys. We did the same with our Miss B. But in the end you did do the right thing. The comment you share says it all. Keeping prayers lifted for you.
    Hugs, Celestina Marie

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