In the last few months, Benny has been coughing and it has gotten worse. I took him to the doctor’s again last week to try to find out what is the reason for it. They did a round of antibiotics and it didn’t seem to do anything for him. Benedryl was not having any effect on him either. So when his office called a week later to check on him, I decided to take him in again. Dr. Carlson agreed to take some x-rays and rinse his nose out and get some sample. The x-ray was sent to the radiologist and the sample was sent to the cytologist. He came home yesterday seemed to be better, didn’t have the awful noise at night when he tried to breathe through his nose. A bit of blood when he sneezes was told to be normal. Today, the doctor called and gave me the result from the radiology. I can sense from his tone of voice that it wasn’t good before he told me. He said the radiologist agreed that due to his history and his age, about 10 1/2, there looks like to be tumor growing in his nose and it has affected the bone, too. He suggested to wait till the cytology test comes back to see if they can tell what kind and may be able to make some prognosis. So I started crying of course, thinking about the worst and fearing the end.
I know I don’t want any more pet after Benny and Tido because I dread this time of their lives when their health is deteriorating and you can do nothing for them but to see them suffer and feeling sad and helpless. I had to put my first dog down when he blew both of his ACLs and I had no money to fix him. That was devastating. But somehow, I was talked into getting Benny and Tido at the same time. Benny has been a good dog, sensitive, timid but good at heart. Never bit anybody or attempted to. Always happy to see visitors with tail wagging. As Leo said, he has very telling eyes, you can tell whether he is happy, sad, or concerned just by looking at his eyes.
Now 10 years later, I’m facing the same anxiety of a dog that is sick and has terminal illness. I don’t want to face it but I have to. And I have to make the decision when it’s time so he won’t suffer too much. I can see that he has not been well and can’t sleep well because his nose is stuffed and making lots of noises. And that also kept me up at night listening to him trying to breathe and coughing. I have very low tolerance of seeing, hearing or sensing suffering. It affects me deeply. That’s why I could never go into the medical field. I probably will develop depression if I have to deal with it every day.
So here I am, experiencing the sadness, the fear and the worry. I am certain this time that I do not want to have another pet after these two. I just cannot imaging having to deal with these emotions over and over again in the future. I am blessed with the animals I did have. They gave me love and companionship. But because of the same reason, I go through the intense sadness and anxiety when they are ill. Life is short, and I just dont have what it takes to see another pet die on me.