Mimi

It may be to early for me to write this post, but I am going to try...

I have had Mimi in my family since I was 13 years old. My mom brought her home from the animal shelter as a baby. I remember the day, where we were when she brought her into the room to surprise us. She spent 8 years with our family and after I got home from college, and got married, I adopted her because all of us kids were gone that were taking care of her.

Brett and I had ourselves a dog and we loved her so much. She lived in 4 different houses with us, went on vacations with us, went camping with us and all sorts of things. She was our baby when we coudn't have our own and she made me feel so much better about that.

4 or so years later, we got Lucy, another old lady that needed a home. They didnt love each other, but tolerated each other and gradually learned to like each other. 2 more years later, we got our girls and they loved them, sadly, soon after we got the girls, Lucy has a stroke and died. ... Mimi, being an old cranky lady, didn't like them all to much but tolerated them to an extent. She went from an only child and then one of 2 when we got Lucy one in a house with 3 real kids. I'm sure it was a huge adjustment for her, not being the center of attention anymore.

Mimi got diagnosed with a brain tumor a couple of years ago. The vet back then said she may not have 6 months. 2 and a half years later she was still with us. Less than a year ago, she started to experience side effects of her tumor. Her left side of her face went dead, paralyzed and numb. Then the nerves in  her face and upper body began to twitch. The vet said at that time that it was getting worse but he didnt think she was any pain but we should watch her to monitor her quality of life and eventually we would have to make the hard decision to put her to sleep.. 3 months ago she started coughing and hacking. We took her to the vet and he gave us some medication and made it a bit better for a while. Then it started back up again a couple of weeks ago. Itwent from a cough to pneumonia. She was having a hard time breathing and definitely had liquid in her lungs that got worse and worse. Her quality of life was getting worse and worse and we knew that we would have to make that decision soon.I was watching her closely and monitoring what she was eating.

Monday she was acting pretty weird. I watched her all day and she just seemed different, she wasn't eating much. Monday night she had a couple of spells where she was so week that she fell over and couldn't stand or walk. Tuesday she didn't eat anything all day. She spent the day laying around and then occasionally walking around outside- I assume, trying to find a place to die. I called the vet that day and they didn't have any appts that day so I scheduled it for Wednesday morning. We didn't know if she would make it through the night. I slept very little. I was waking up often to listen to see if she was still breathing. She did make it through the night. Wednesday morning she seemed better than Tuesday but still strange.

We took her in to the vet and they put us in a small room with a couch. We spent a few minuets with her and then they took her to put and IV in her arm. They brought her back to me and I held her for a minute and then the doctor put the medication in the IV. It was extremely fast, almost immediate and she was gone. Her heart had stopped and she went limp in my arms. I tried to contain myself until the doctor left the room and then we broke down. Our baby, our first baby was gone. We sent a little while with her in that room after that and then they took her, wrapped her in her blanket and gave her back to us. From there we took her over to the Weber County animal shelter. We chose a private cremation for both Lucy and Mimi. Today they called for us to pick up her box. Brett went to get it after work.

 I feel very guilty because I had to make that decision, almost like I killed her. I know I shouldn't feel that way. I know that she was in a horrible state of life and it was cruel not to. The whole thing jut felt wrong to me and I hate that I had to do that to her.

I miss her so much... People that don't have dogs would never ever understand the love you have  or the pain you have when they die. She will always be in my heart- the dog that I had and loved for more than half of my life.

I always thought that we would get another dog, I wanted to get another one before Mimi went but we didn't and had no idea when she would die. But now that she is gone, I'm not sure that we will get one right away. We will have to see. I can never replace Mimi. Never. But we will have another dog someday.

.