"Abnormal" thinking when your dog is about to die

[JazzNScout]

Not sure where else to post this, but having been through this three times in the last six years, I'm seeing a pattern with myself in which my thinking gets very skewed when a dog falls terminally ill.
Have you all experienced this? Any comments about it?

The most recent example is when I learned Jasmine had HS. I saw the size of the tumor on the X-ray (huge). I did my research. So, I say to my husband that we would take her on vacation with us (scheduled for later in the summer). He says no, and gives me very valid reasons. (He actually suggested we cancel the vacation, which is already paid for.) Of course, they didn't sound valid to me at all. I get mad (he didn't know it) and think to myself (this is another irrational thought) that I would take Jasmine on vacation with ME and leave my husband at home, and Jasmine and I would have this vacation together and it would be great.

It's like my brain stopped working correctly or something. There is no way Jazz would have been comfortable going on the vacation with us or with me alone, I would be god-knows-how-far from a vet, and there is no way she would have MADE it to that time. I was totally into this fantasty that Jasmine and I would have a vacation alone together. . . just strange. And sad.

My thinking goes very askew in these situations.

[Tbarrios333]

It must be so hard on you. Our defense mechanisms react in weird ways sometimes.

[lucymom]

There is no "normal" when we are hit with a horrible diagnosis. there can be anything from denial to anger to bargaining, acceptance--the stages of grief don't always happen in a particular order. Further, we can do anticipatory grieving, almost trying to detach from a loved one we anticipate losing. Or we can indulge in magical thinking--which I did--thinking we can love it away, will it away, wish it away. I used to sit with Lucy, who had hemangio and try to visualize her cancer shrinking to remission.

HS is a terrible diagnosis. Our dog can die an hour later or months later, with no warning. We have no control, none. And sometimes we want to take control over the few things we can--maybe you wanted to "escape" with Jasmine and outrun the disease. I used to want to just put Lucy in the car and drive as fast as I could---knowing it was a fantasy that we could hide from the disease.

The diagnosis and loss of a loved one is a trauma and our brains struggle to find a way to deal with it. Logic does not always enter in to the equation.

Cut yourself some slack--your reaction sounds well within the range or normal to me. I have worked as a crisis intervention worker and people who are desperate to want a different outcome can react in within a wide spectrum of "normal." without it meaning they have become unstable.

I'm so sorry you have had to do this three times--and it doesn't get easier does it?

[SuzyE]

denial is self protection. my dog named jazmin recently died, she had cancer. It was very difficult but there was just no more denying it. It is really tough letting go of a dog but remember they would have been born anyway so at least they had a good life with us.

[tamarb]

Yes I was very taken aback by how confused I was when there (seemingly) was no reason to be. ANd it shocked me as well. When I finally knew it was time to let my beloved DM GSD mix go, He had just reached a new stage of DM where he didnt seem to be able to get up on his front legs to a sitting position. Until this time I had been able to keep him happy, but this was frustrating to him. So I knew it was his time and I knew I could not go back to work until he either improved (wasnt going to happen) or I let him go. Yet I still got up and took him out and bathed him and then took a shower and got dressed as if I were going in to work. When I was all ready to go I sat down and wondered how I could have been going thru the motions like I was going to go into work. Instead I had to take him up to U of FL and make sure nothing more could be done (he was in a stem cell study so there was a sliver of a chance they might think there was further hope but they did not) and then had to let him go.

I so understand what you are saying. To this day it really confuses how I seemed to be in this confused daze despite knowing for a year that day would come. And I will never understand how despite knowing deep down I was not going to work I could have fooled myself getting ready as if it were just another day. Its very strange but sounds exactly like what you are takling abouit.

I am so very sorry for the HS. It never seems to get easier no matter how many times you have been through it. It is always so painful to loose a beloved pup and I wish you many special moments together with Jasmine.

[JazzNScout]

Originally Posted By: TamarYes I was very taken aback by how confused I was when there (seemingly) was no reason to be. ANd it shocked me as well. When I finally knew it was time to let my beloved DM GSD mix go, He had just reached a new stage of DM where he didnt seem to be able to get up on his front legs to a sitting position. Until this time I had been able to keep him happy, but this was frustrating to him. So I knew it was his time and I knew I could not go back to work until he either improved (wasnt going to happen) or I let him go. Yet I still got up and took him out and bathed him and then took a shower and got dressed as if I were going in to work. When I was all ready to go I sat down and wondered how I could have been going thru the motions like I was going to go into work. Instead I had to take him up to U of FL and make sure nothing more could be done (he was in a stem cell study so there was a sliver of a chance they might think there was further hope but they did not) and then had to let him go.

I so understand what you are saying. To this day it really confuses how I seemed to be in this confused daze despite knowing for a year that day would come. And I will never understand how despite knowing deep down I was not going to work I could have fooled myself getting ready as if it were just another day. Its very strange but sounds exactly like what you are takling abouit.

I am so very sorry for the HS. It never seems to get easier no matter how many times you have been through it. It is always so painful to loose a beloved pup and I wish you many special moments together with Jasmine.

Yes, this is exactly the kind of behavior I'm talking about (I had Jasmine PTS 7/3, after a "perfect day" together). With my last dog who died (in 2007), I sat down and ate dinner after she collapsed. It made no sense and sounds so cold, but it was as if I was pretending everything was normal (like you getting ready for work). I think that I thought that, after dinner, she would show signs of improvement & would get up and be normal again. With my previous dog, I did really strange things when I saw her suddenly going downhill. I had decided it was the cat poop she had eaten earlier on a walk that was doing this to her, and I blamed her illness and death on cats. I called the city and raised **** about all the feral cats around and how my dog had become sick and died because of this (of course, they told me this was likely NOT the reason my dog died..I must have sounded like a lunatic).

[ozzymama]

I keep doing similar things with Sandi. Let her see her 14th Birthday - next month, I know her birthday doesn't mean anything to her. She has to see dh and I close this real estate deal next month - why? She has no stake in the title ROFL!
I want one more Christmas with her....... Christmas is actually stressful, us packed up into a vehicle to make the 1.5 hr journey north in gawd awful weather at times..... I want her to go on vacation in October with us, I don't know that is a good thing.
It's incredibly irrational. I want her to go in her sleep so I don't have to make a decision - what I think I'm going to do with a 45lb dog at 5 am....... The vet doesn't open til 8. Put her in the freezer? The trunk of the car?

I know it's just the way things happen.

I had a gf call me once, her beloved cat died, very ill kitty, she had spent about $3,500 to keep the cat alive the last year of it's life. She wanted me to call my Funeral Director friend about having him clean her up and have a visitation in the home. (This was very quick after it happened) She still made her a casket out of a shoe box, bathed the cat, sprinkled rose petals over her.....

At the time I thought my friend was asinine. Now dh even mentions the time is coming I jump down his throat and threaten him that it won't be her it'll be him.

[LJsMom]

The summer that Niko passed from cancer I had many irrational thoughts. The best one - as the time for our 10 day vacation in Florida approached - was my husband would fly and my daughter and I would drive to Florida with Niko. I figured he'd be fine in the air conditioning. My vet gave me a reality smack. Niko left us a week before our vacation. I cried through our vacation.

[middleofnowhere]

Sometimes it's wishful thinking or grasping at straws. On the other hand, this January Barker the Elder seemed to be slipping (she was at the vets, had seemed to rally earlier). The vet & I discussed it. I came out prepared to euthanize her but she rallied. However, that was the weekend Barker the Younger had a bleed that indicated her hemangiosarcoma had spread. I euthanized her. Now, with Barker the Elder, I have no idea how much time we have together. She's had two episodes of sudden loss of function from which she has recovered. I'm not taking a vacation this summer because I know the trip would be very hard on her. I worry about erring on the side of pessimism instead of optimism. I try to take it week by week or day by day but sometimes it is hard to evaluate how much to try and what to do. I guess I could use a bit of unreality because reality has me stymied - I am not sure what it is.

[arycrest]

Currently there are 13 Hooligans waiting for me at the Bridge. Two were what I thought were fairly healthy seniors who died suddenly, one was young when he was put down, the rest were seniors who were put down after extended illnesses.

I've also had some bizzare thoughts, did strange things, did some things I'm ashamed of, and did some things I was glad I did.

I recently lost three seniors in a nine month period. Ringer died May 24, 2008, and Kelly followed him to the Bridge on July 31. Ringer's sister, Honey, had been diagnosed with Cauda Equina which is what took their father's life and I knew she didn't have a great deal of time left. In early August I got a cottage over at Cedar Key (less than an hour's driver to the ERs in Gainesville) for a long weekend and took her and Mac with me. She died this past March 3, and I'm glad we shared that special time together.

When Yukon was dying I decided to drive him up to our former vet in Maryland for a miracle cure. It didn't make sense, he wouldn't have survived the trip, the vets down here were doing everything possible to keep him comfortable, but I got the bee in my bonnet that I had to take him up to Scott and that was it. It took my sister to knock some sense into me and get me back down to earth.

When I had Tasha put down, I had to dress up in my "Sunday best" before taking her to the vets. She died in my arms and I never wore those clothes again.

With Niki during his final days (he was dying from osteosarcoma), I made quite a few appointments to have him put down, and then cancelled them. I was being so selfish, I wasn't ready to say good-by and he paid the piper for my self-centered decisions. He collapsed in the yard one morning, and couldn't get up. I always felt either his dysplastic hips gave out from the constant pounding after his amputation or the other leg got the cancer and snapped. Regardless, he was in a lot of pain and had to lay in the yard while I threw some clothes on and then dashed him up to the vet's office 45 minutes from here before he could be put out of his misery.