What a difference a week makes.
I'll just get the difficult part over with quick and say that we had to put down Callie around midnight this past Thursday. The tick disease wasn't the cause of all the problems that she was having. It was cancer in her intestines and liver and a couple more places that I can't remember that Laura mentioned. The more serious condition may have given a false positive for the tick disease diagnosis.
It was Tuesday, if I remember right, that our vet told us that we need to take her to the veterinary clinic in Stillwater, about an hour away. I took Connor to soccer like every Tuesday, but Laura decided to take Callie to Stillwater. After some nervous moments and times of waiting, Callie had some emergency stabilization done and she stayed there overnight. The next day , they then told us that she needed to undergo surgery to see what was causing this and to attempt to remove it. They first thought it was an ulcer in her duodenum, but even after some scoping, ultrasounds, etc. they weren't sure until they were in.
Anyway, all this was during the day Wednesday and I think she went into surgery Wednesday night and all went well. I guess Thursday morning she was peppier than before, but I really can't remember much of this, actually. Laura decided to go visit Callie Thursday evening just as Connor was getting ready for bed. The visit seemed to go well, but just before she came home, around 9:30pm - 10:00pm, the surgeon had called her and said that things were starting to get really bad and that it would be best to put her down. It was a difficult few moments, but we decided to drive back while Kelly watched Connor for us. We arrived there around 11:30pm or something like that and Laura was brave enough to go in and observe it and say her last goodbyes. I stayed in the car because I don't think I could have done it. Watching her while they put her down was not something that I wanted to experience. Laura came back out after a short while and we just sat in the car for a little bit to think about what just happened. In the end, what we did was the best thing to do because it was just going to get worse.
In hindsight, I wish we knew what was wrong with her and how severe it was when we had her at the vet in OKC because, probably, we would have considered putting her down then before doing all the stabilization and surgery. We felt bad that Callie had to go through all that just to find out it wasn't enough. It also sucked that she had to spent the last few days at the clinic instead of at home or something. It just came so quickly, but, I guess there's nothing we could have done.
The next couple of days were hard for us because just doing everyday things, we would think about every now and then because she was part of routines and such. The difficult part the next morning was when Connor was asking for Callie when they were letting Kip back in the house and feeding them and stuff. He seems to have forgotten about it in the last couple of days, but at the same time, I think we're trying to avoid mentioning anything that involves Callie too. I haven't asked him to get Kip any treats because I think that he would ask about Callie. We picked up Callie's food bowl as well. We're thinking about donating the urinary food to the vet because it's basically a brand new bag.
All in all, this event was hard for all of us. I still tear up thinking about certain situations and memories, but it's getting better. Now we have to plan for a huge expense that we weren't foreseeing as well. Yikes.
Some weird guy also just came up to me right now at the library saying how he studied Chinese and wants to go to Japan, etc. VERY weirdly social guy. I thought he was special or something. Anyway, he then continues to say that he's Christian and if I wanted to hear the gospel. 1) I don't want to hear the gospel 2) I don't even know what "hearing the gospel" means 3) Don't take up my time being nice to start but then trying to tell me about religion. I just told Laura that we need to leave OK. I've been approached by religious people more times here than all other places I've been combined. If I wanted to seek religion, I would do it myself. I don't need guidance or whatever you're offering. Anyway, end of my rant there.
EDIT: I just wanted to add that this guy asked if I was Chinese. Not very smart for getting a bachelor's in Chinese and living in Beijing for 4 months, is it? Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if his entire spiel was made up to segue into converting people. Asian people, at that...
I thought Connor was going to not cry when I left him this morning, but he did start to a little as I left. 6th day now...I would have thought he would know by now. The long weekend probably didn't help, either.
Okay, I'm going to surf now. I have a Dr.'s appointment this coming Thursday to get my throat checked. It's been uncomfortable for a couple of months now, so. Hopefully it's
