there is a long road in rescue that hides itself in the mist. it is a misleading, dangerous road that starts with hope and ends in helpless defeat. it tricks you into thinking the map that you carry will see you safely to the end...and the longer you travel and the further you go, you start to suspect that the road has no end.
this road holds no real answers..the answers you think you hold are all false and this road is full of suffering and eventual loss.
today my heart is broken because i put merry and i on on that long wrong road. for months now i have watched and participated in her suffering and i kept telling her to be patient because we now had the answer and soon she would be ok. and it was not true..today we euthanized her.
her vet visit did not go well..she now had a huge bacterial overgrowth despite 3 months of daily baytril. the demodex mite load while decreasing, is not reaching a cure (she has millions of hair follicles and each follicle can hold as many as 20 demodex mites)...she is in a constant and continual torment of whole body itchiness that is driving her insane. she is again ripping her skin to shreds..in the brief time that i took off her towel jacket when we left home, til we reached the vet clinic..her skin again was a bleeding mess. the vet said her chances of ever getting better were getting slim to nonexistent with each week of no improvement that passes. the weeks and months of bayril was a big gun antibiotic that was supposed to prevent this massive infection. he said she just does not have a functioning immune system anymore and without that she just was not able to fight off all of her problems, even with good and frequent medical assessment and care.
we could send off cultures to see if there were any other antibiotics that the bacteria was still sensitive to but even if there was something...eventually it too would be non effective as the bacteria became resistent.
how far down the long road of suffering with no foreseeable ending do i force sweet merry to go?
i asked the vet if i needed to let her go and he said he thought so.
and so we euth'd her. i could not stand one further moment of watching her suffer without any hope. and i still don't know if that horrible road does have a final happy ending because i just couldn't stay with her on it anymore.
merry's suffering is over....i continue to suffer with questions of going too far or not going far enough. my head is full of the memories of watching her suffering and not finding the answer for her.
and my heart is breaking because i named merry; merry, because she used to be such a merry old soul. but she has not been merry for a long time, she has been in hell with me standing helpless at her side.
i think that road has no end...i think it goes on forever, leading you forward by falsely promising to finally find that happy end. i think it is a road full of false hopes to trick you into causing more and more suffering. and that road just scares me so i ended it for both merry and me.
rest in peace now merry...i am so sorry.
Oh Carol, I am so, so sorry.
But remember, many times that road leads to success. Which you will never reach if you don't try. Keep trying, keep doing your best. Even if the outcome isn't what you hoped for, the animals are loved and cared for along the way. You did all you could.