Hard, Late Night

11:30 is about when we finally got home...

Yesterday evening after I fed John, about 6:30, I joined Jacob outside on to swing to watch the kids jump on the trampoline. But when I got out there I noticed that Toby wasn't acting like himself. He was walking around all drunk like, and could barely support himself on his back legs, his head hanging almost to the ground. I thought maybe one of his hips broke again, so I told Jacob to check him out, but when Jacob called him, it took him a really long time to respond because he could barely get up. I decided that we needed to get him into the vet ASAP. Anyway, it was 7pm and unfortunately they were closed, but they had a phone number for an Emergancy place, that I called and they said to bring him right in. We left the kids w/ Sara and headed in. After examination it looked as though something was seriously wrong w/ Toby, possibly a total system failure (w/ little to no chance of recovery), liver failure (wide margin of recovery depending on the extent of damage, but w/ major expense and long term mediation and medical treatment), or possibly a galbladder obstruction (w/ chance for recovery after surgery). Though most of the things we heard from then on out were all very limited and didn't really answer any questions that could really help us make a decision on what to do. (The vet seemed to be leaning more towards advanced liver failure.) We ended up going w/ more bloodwork, which only confirmed that something was pretty wrong w/ him, but w/out more bloodwork, ultrasounds, and a belly tap (they found a large mass of fluid in Toby's belly), they couldn't really tell us anymore. And all of these just to find out what was possibly wrong w/ him would amount to over $500 and that didn't neccessarily mean that they would actually find out what was wrong w/ him. After much talk w/ the Vet, Jake's Mom Von, and together, we finally decided that we should just let Toby go. He seemed to be suffering so much and Jacob made a point that we didn't want him to suffer anymore by having them poke and prod him until they maybe found out what was wrong w/ him. Anyway, I couldn't really think anymore about what to do and just wanted to take Toby home, so we decided that after a fluid flush to try and make Toby more comfortable we would take him home so everyone could spend a little more time w/ him and say goodbye and we could take him back the next day. But while we were waiting on the fluids, Jake and I talked some more and decided that it would just be better go ahead w/ it right then because it wasn't right for us to make Toby suffer more just because we wanted to spend more time w/ him. I couldn't stay in the room, but Jacob did. It was hard enough for me to just stand outside the room and barely hear what was going on inside. I could hear a bunch of sniffling and nose blowing and wanted to go in because I could tell Jacob was hurting, but I didn't want to go in there w/ Toby still in the room. When Jacob finally came out we just held eachother for awhile. This whole thing was so sudden! We loved Toby so much, I couldn't even go to sleep last night w/out a massive dose of my pain meds. And then my heart hurt so much I thought I would't be able to sleep last night at all. But I finally did.

This morning for me was hard because I had to tell Anna that Toby had died (David didn't understand). She and I cried for awhile. But even though Anna seemed to have gotten over it quickly, I haven't. I keep seeing things of Toby's or thinking about what he looked like before he died and I keep breaking down crying. The afternoon has been better, but I still can't stop thinking about him and if we made the right decision...