I have been putting off writing this. Every time I go to start my hands start shaking and I start to cry.
It seems every time we start to make progress with Kaos' pain management, we just as quickly start to go backwards. Last night the vet switched his routine and we are giving it 2 weeks to test it out.
I am not hopeful as in my heart I truly believe we can not make him comfortable enough for me to feel good about.
He has been showing increased discomfort in all of his daily activities, even with his extensive med intake. He is also starting to get defensive when he thinks you are too close to his back end, this is showing me he is not even close to being comfortable. In the last 2 weeks my husband has had to help him stand up 4x. This is something I can not do on a daily basis since I did it two weeks ago and reaggravated my 2 herniated discs. Having reinjured myself I was given a pretty good wake up call to what it's like to have chronic pain, and this is also playing into our decision. I have always said the minute we can not control his pain, we have to let him go. We have decided to give the new scheduling 2 weeks and if it is not helping immensely we will be picking a date to let Kaos be at peace.
Logically I am 100% sure this is the right thing to do for him.....but it's killing me. He still wants to play, eat, drink, love.....but his body is not capable.
Also since he is getting more defensive, I do not want him to snap at someone "too close" and to have that be how he is remembered, does that make sense?
I have a couple questions for all of you who have been through this.
How did you prepare yourself mentally? Are there special things you did?, wish you had done after the fact?
Also with another dog in the house....Sherman is 11 months old and has never known a life here w/out Kaos. Did you start seperating them more beforehand, ie right now they have times of the day they go outside together, do you limit those, so your other dog gets used to being alone? In the house we already do crate/rotate due to our vet recommendation a couple months ago....but is there more we should be doing?
My kids have also never known a house without Kaos, so we have been preparing for this for awhile. We have discussed sometimes it is the best thing you can do for them, how it is the most loving thing. Both of them have friends who've had to do the same in the last couple months so we used those opportunities to discuss that while it was hard, it was very kind.
Sorry if this is rambled, I have been a wreck the last couple of days, and I am sure that isn't going to change anytime soon.
Thank you in advance for any input you can offer.
It seems every time we start to make progress with Kaos' pain management, we just as quickly start to go backwards. Last night the vet switched his routine and we are giving it 2 weeks to test it out.
I am not hopeful as in my heart I truly believe we can not make him comfortable enough for me to feel good about.
He has been showing increased discomfort in all of his daily activities, even with his extensive med intake. He is also starting to get defensive when he thinks you are too close to his back end, this is showing me he is not even close to being comfortable. In the last 2 weeks my husband has had to help him stand up 4x. This is something I can not do on a daily basis since I did it two weeks ago and reaggravated my 2 herniated discs. Having reinjured myself I was given a pretty good wake up call to what it's like to have chronic pain, and this is also playing into our decision. I have always said the minute we can not control his pain, we have to let him go. We have decided to give the new scheduling 2 weeks and if it is not helping immensely we will be picking a date to let Kaos be at peace.
Logically I am 100% sure this is the right thing to do for him.....but it's killing me. He still wants to play, eat, drink, love.....but his body is not capable.
Also since he is getting more defensive, I do not want him to snap at someone "too close" and to have that be how he is remembered, does that make sense?
I have a couple questions for all of you who have been through this.
How did you prepare yourself mentally? Are there special things you did?, wish you had done after the fact?
Also with another dog in the house....Sherman is 11 months old and has never known a life here w/out Kaos. Did you start seperating them more beforehand, ie right now they have times of the day they go outside together, do you limit those, so your other dog gets used to being alone? In the house we already do crate/rotate due to our vet recommendation a couple months ago....but is there more we should be doing?
My kids have also never known a house without Kaos, so we have been preparing for this for awhile. We have discussed sometimes it is the best thing you can do for them, how it is the most loving thing. Both of them have friends who've had to do the same in the last couple months so we used those opportunities to discuss that while it was hard, it was very kind.
Sorry if this is rambled, I have been a wreck the last couple of days, and I am sure that isn't going to change anytime soon.
Thank you in advance for any input you can offer.
