Gizmo was having trouble getting comfortable last night and was whimpering a bit and panting a lot despite having the AC running in the bedroom. I grabbed the handled of his harness and pulled him up onto the bed with me, he calmed down, and a little while later he was fast asleep and dreaming. I felt a sigh of relief and eventually also fell asleep. A few hours later I was awoken by a thud. Gizmo had rolled off the bed onto his face. He didn’t even bother to try and catch himself with his legs or try to get up even though he was in a really awkward and likely uncomfortable position stretched from the bed to the floor. He just laid there like a helpless chunk of meat. I pulled him back up and we made it through to morning. Yesterday I began researching at-home euthanasia and today I feel even more certain that this decision is fast-approaching. I impatiently waited for Colin to finish working so we could discuss it. He hasn’t been starting to think about it the way I have the past week and he isn’t ready to make any decisions just yet. I agreed to wait until after his physical therapy appointment and to have them examine the leg and see what other options we may not have tried yet are still on the table.
I can no longer get him in and out of the car by myself even with the ramp with how little Gizmo is willing to do himself to help. We got him to the physical therapy appointment, and I cried as I talked about how he’s been doing. They suggested we try a couple more things: ketamine treatments (to hopefully reset his pain receptors and make the meds work that he may have developed some tolerance to over the years) and increasing the dosage on his amantadine to 2x/day. They generally agreed that we could give it a few more days and see, but also sent some resources for assessing quality of life and some recommendations for at-home euthanasia services. There doesn’t appear to be any injury to his leg so it’s just the pain from his known orthopedic issues, and he is losing muscle mass.
All I can do now is hope that we can get him walking a bit again. If he is just laying around doing nothing all day, then this isn’t much of a life for him. It’s not the life I want for him even if he is still being his attention-seeking cuddle monster self and not giving me a sign that he is ready to give up. He happily chewed on his bone a bit in the evening while I contemplated whether our time left would be measured in days rather than months.
