My Girl

Several of you won't be surprised that Stella is my blip today.

Her vet appointment was good and bad in many ways:

My fears that she was in pain after all her falls were allayed by our amazing vet but the falls are also not caused by the medication adjustment. In fact she rushed a blood test through just to confirm and her thyroid numbers are, ironically, "perfect".

It's the neurological side of things that is rapidly deteriorating :(

Her front legs are now showing the same signs as the back and just giving way from under her so the advice is no proper walks as we don't know when it will happen. Confusion is rearing its ugly head more frequently too :( 

And so we had the quality of life conversation again...the one where I'm told that anytime from now on would be kind and fair and in no way should I feel guilty about making that horrid decision. 

At my protests of "but you just said she's not in any pain", I was reminded that if she's not able to run around and do the things she enjoys, quality of life is diminished. 

Better to send my precious darling girl over the Rainbow Bridge before she's suffering any indignity and our last memories are happy ones rather than pain-filled stressful ones.

My head knows this makes sense; my heart cannot bear the thought of saying goodbye before I absolutely must. 

As things stand we go back in a month to see how we're coping and start making a plan (home or surgery etc) and I'm hopeful I can defer the next inevitable step until she's had her 13th birthday on the 12th November.

I'm so very sad but I'm planning lots of smiles for this lady over the next few weeks <3