Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 11 2016, Monday

 A fighter

About a week before Chinese New Year in early February, I discovered that Bean Bean  was refusing food. Not even his most favourite treats could tempt him. He used to weigh 5.7kilo and weighed only 3.4kilo when we took him to the vet. After various tests, Bean Bean was diagnosed abdominal cancer. Given chemotherapy, he would live two more years. If not, he would have only two months. So being responsible owners, we agreed. There would be more than 10 treatments to be administered every two weeks, sometimes in the form of injections and other times in drugs.

Bean Bean responded differently to the sessions. Generally, he would vomit for two days. As he was too feeble to eat from the bowl, we syringe fed him. As he did not have the strength to stand on four legs to wee, we held his hind legs. Steadily he improved. He was even able to eat from the bowl and got up on all four legs to greet me.

But something must have gone wrong in the last chemotherapy he received. A case of over-dose? For the whole week, he vomited even the water we gave him. He was lying there all the time. He was a bag of bones as I held him in my arms. I whispered to his ear “You have tried very hard already. You are a fighter. Go now!” 

We knew the end would soon come but we didn’t take him to the clinic. He loved us. Every night, he would only jump inside his own bed after we were all home. Otherwise, he would be lying by the door waiting for the one who was not back yet. In the small hours of April 9, he breathed his last just when I dozed off with him lying in his bed nearby. 

We were blessed to have had Bean Bean for 15 years. He was clean, disciplined, and dutiful! We miss him! And there remains a pang of guilt - should we have subjected him to chemotherapy and brought him all the tortuous pain?