[pyrnet] together at the bridge

["Ann K. Wetherilt" <wetheri@emmanuel.edu>]

Thanks for your responses yesterday, but have to tell you the sad news
that we had to make the decision to help Paddington join our lovely
Shelley and so many others at the Rainbow Bridge last night. We know we
had the best available care and diagnosis, but when an ultrasound
indicated significant fluid build-up around the heart as well as the
lungs, there was really no choice. The only way to reduce it to even give
him any relief with the breathing would have required open-chest surgery,
not an option we'd have put him through when it would be only potentially
palliative.
We are reeling with the suddenness of it all--Thursday morning we were
walking in the arboretum, his favorite place, and although we'd noticed
him slowing down a bit, there was nothing to indicate it was other than
the onset of summer and the fact that he was almost 8.  Ivy Rose is very
clingy today, and I think will be very lonesome until another joins our
family. Paddington was particularly my "heart dog"--the puppy I'd dreamed
of all my life, really. We can only be grateful that he suffered very
little, and that the decision was so clear that we don't have to worry
about whether we did the right thing. The staff at Angell were
fantastic--including the young emergency vet who was supposed to go off
duty at 1 p.m. but stayed with our boy throughout the tests etc. and
waited for us to be with him when the final decision had to be made.
Thanks again for all your care and concern. 
Ann, Peg, and puzzled, lonesome Ivy Rose