Posted by Jacky on March 30, 2008, 1:32 am, in reply to "Put my dog to sleep today:("
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Aw Caroline I'm so sorry... I too have an old one, he's 15, mixed breed about 50 pounds. His time is coming too.
I know I'm going to be sick with grief when the time comes, but I know this - if it weren't for metacam and other things he'd have already been gone for 3 years. I bet the same is true of your Suki too, and that's another gift you gave her, and yourself, the gift of time. The drugs these days are amazing, there never used to be 15 year old labs did there?
However that doesn't lighten the load of the loss. Nothing does, right now.
The stress theory of cancer was originally proposed by the guy who wrote 'Getting Well Again', the original visualization guy. He worked with the army so observed a lot of people and he found that the onset of cancer related to stress that occurred which caused deep suppression of the immune system (which usually reads depression) (or fatigue) and posited that if those times occurred at one of the times that your body was naturally misfiring and creating cancer cells, which it does periodically, that gave cancer the opportunity to bypass the defences.
I believe firmly that is what happened to me.
That being said, I'm still subject to both stress and depression, and when things are rough I worry, as you do, that the damn thing will sneak back in on me. I do everything I can at those times to keep my immune system strong - exercise, food, stuff like that. I don't know if it works, but it eases my mind to think I'm trying to counter the negative physical effects of difficult emotional times.
And sadness isn't depression, but grief is still difficult. I think when it comes to these furbabies there is no way we are ever ready - I've not seen it anyhow.
It was a very kind and good thing you did for Suki and I know from personal experience that because this was a certainty and a right thing, the guilt part will pass. Right is hard, sometimes. But right you were.
I'm sorry for this, for any of us who have or will suffer this.
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