Goodbye Friend...

I'm not sure where to even begin with this post, so I will just come right out with it. We had to put our dog of almost 9 years to sleep yesterday afternoon. This has literally been the hardest thing I have ever had to do!! I picked Drake up from Becky's after school, and we came straight home like we always do. Maverick was there at the door just like always to greet us with something in his mouth. This time it was Drake's little sock. He was wagging his tail and behind, and oh so happy to see us just like he always is. I said "Hiiiii Maviiii!!" just like I always do. We took our coats off, and we settled in doing our own thing. Drake was in the computer room playing Lego Indiana Jones, and I had begun making frosting for a birthday cake I was to make. Maverick went to the door after we were home a couple of minutes, and he wanted to go outside. I let him out and then continued back with my frosting. After a couple of minutes or so he barked to come back in, and I went to the door but he had laid down on the deck and was licking his front leg and paw so I just went back to my frosting. About 5 minutes or so later he barked at the door again, so I let him in. He came in and walked to the living room. A short time later he came out to the kitchen and picked up that same little sock of Drake's and headed toward the door. He turned around when I didn't come right away to let him out, and he looked at me with his ears perked up and his head tilted to the side with that silly little sock hanging out of his mouth. I said "All right. I'm coming" and he dropped the sock on the kitchen floor and I let him out. I again went back to my frosting. About 5 more minutes or so went by, and I was just getting ready to turn off my mixer, and I heard the most horrific screaming, whining, crying, screeching noise I have ever heard in my life. I actually thought to myself "What the hell is that?" and Drake came running into the kitchen at that moment saying "Mommy what is that noise?" At that moment it clicked in my head that it was Mav. I ran to the sliding glass door that goes out onto our deck, and I flung it open and ran out. There he was at the far end of the deck by the backyard at the top of the two steps frozen and trembling like a leaf with his back right leg pulled up as far as it would go. I ran to him in a panic and tried to help him across the deck. I just kept repeating "Oh my God, baby! Oh my God!" He wouldn't put that leg down so we went slow and easy, all the while he was crying this God awful cry. I guess I really thought he had hurt his knee or dislocated his hip. I got him inside and he laid down right inside the sliding doors on the floor. He didn't stay there for more than a couple of seconds, and he was trying to get back up. I wrapped my arms around his waist and tried to lift up his back end and guide him to the carpet in the dining room. We got half way across the wood floor, and he froze on a rug in front of the stove. I let his behind area down gently so that I could go grab the phone and call Steve for help. All this time I am talking out loud to him and trying to comfort him by telling him it was going to be all right. He started trying to go to the carpet as I was calling Steve, so I'm holding the phone and trying to tell Steve I need help because he hurt his leg real bad and Steve can hear him crying on the other end of the phone. He was on his way home already, so I hung up and finished getting him to the carpet. He went around to the side of the table and laid down. He was trembling so badly! I called our Vet only to find out he was out of town for the week for some Training Seminar and he wasn't even taking any emergency calls, but if we had an emergency we could call the Quad City Animal Hospital. I immediately knew I didn't want to travel that far with Mav being in the kind of pain he was in. I called Steve back to tell him, and we decided to call a local Vet here in town, so I called the Muscatine Veterinary Hospital on the corner of Park Ave. and Lake Park Blvd. They told us to bring him in right away. Steve and Gage had both come home by this time, and they were comforting Mav. There was just no other way for us to get him to the back of my Durango other than Steve carrying him. All 110 pounds of him. Steve scooped him up like there was just no question about it, like one would do for their child, and we scurried. Mav laid down in the back, and we were off! The kids were just not sure about what was happening at this point, and I was saying that I thought he dislocated his hip. We got to the Vet's office, and we pulled up to the door, and Steve carried him all the way into an exam room. He wouldn't lay on the table they have. He was scared and trembling and wanted down, so Steve put him on the floor. We sat on the floor around him and pet him until the Vet could see us. He felt around on his hip and looked him over good. He asked me if there were any way he could have gotten hit by a car, but I assured him that in the short amount of time he was outside there is no way he could have gotten to any road and back. He began to explain to us that the hip was in tact and fine, but that he could feel that his femur was broken. My eyes got big, and I just didn't understand. He said he wanted to do some x-rays to find out what was going on for sure, but he said that sometimes if there is a tumor it will weaken the bone and it will break. A dogs bone shouldn't just break like Mav's had. We went to the waiting area with the boys just praying that the Vet was wrong. I took Drake to the restroom, and when I came out I could see straight across to the exam room we had started out in. The Vet and Steve were now in there looking at the x-rays, and I could just see the agony in Steve's eyes. I tried to keep myself together until I got there to hear the truth. He just shook his head and said "There is nothing they can do. He has cancer in his bones." I broke down. I was sobbing like a little girl. Steve was sobbing. Gage was sobbing. Drake just kept saying "What's wrong mommy?" I tried to explain to both of the boys, but I kept searching for the right words and asking God in my head "How do I tell my boys that their best friend isn't going to make it?" They brought Mav in and explained to us that the bone was just so brittle and so weak that it broke. The bone actually looked like it was disintegrating in that area on the x-ray. How? How does he have cancer in his bones so bad that they deteriorated to the point of breaking, yet he showed no signs of being sick? He just wagged his tail and behind at Drake and me when we came home an hour ago!! He just climbed our stairs and laid in our bed that morning! He had just went for a walk that morning while I was getting ready for work! He's been eating! He's been drinking! Steve just played on the floor with him a few nights ago! He gets up and down from his spot on the couch many times a day! He looked soooo healthy!! Why? I don't understand, God! WHY? Mav is like our first born child...this cannot be happening!! He was laying on the floor of the exam room, and he was panting so hard and he had his ears pinned back. He was looking at us with these big round eyes as if to say "I'm tired friends. I need to go." The Vet said he was in so much pain. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I saw the pain right there in his leg! I heard the pain through his cries, but I also saw a healthy lively dog laying there that we should have at least a few more years with! It wasn't fair. Not to him, or my boy's, or Steve and I. I wanted more time with him, but he couldn't even walk. There was the option of amputating the leg, but the chances that it had already spread to other areas were great, and he would be in pain. The life expectancy of dogs with this condition after amputating is less that 5 months, and he would be in agony the whole time. This was it. This was his last moments. I didn't get to play with him that day. I didn't give him his bath yet. I hadn't brushed him yet. I needed more time, but there just wasn't any. He was suffering, and we had to let him go home to rest. Steve called his mom to come get Drake because he just wasn't understanding. They brought us a camera and we got some last pictures of us comforting Mav. Gage stayed with us through the whole process. He was so brave. And he soooo loved that dog!! He sobbed and begged and laid on Mav and hugged him. He told him he loved him over and over and just kept saying that it wasn't fair and that he didn't want Mav to die. The Vet started by giving Mav something to help with the pain that would make him sleepy. We gathered around him and just loved on him until he was finally unconscious. Then it was time. The Vet injected the medicine that put him to sleep. It seemed like it took forever for the medicine to go into him, but only a second for it to all be over. I wept. I laid on my stomach face to face with him through it all and just told him over and over how much we loved him and how sorry I was that we didn't know until now. He didn't deserve this! The Vet was completely amazing through the whole thing. He knew Steve from high school, and he treated us as if we were one of his patients. He was caring and understanding and gave us all the time we needed. He was the only one in the building when we finally left. It was literally like leaving one of my own children behind. Mav has been with us since Steve and I started our journey. He was our start to our family. He was our first child to ever be responsible for. He greeted me at the door both times I brought the boys home from the Hospital. He saw us through so much, and he was so loyal. He loved our kids with all his heart, and I do believe he would have given his life for them had the moment ever came about. I seriously feel like I have lost a child. And believe me, I know in my head how silly that it sounds that we are so heartbroken over a dog, but Mav was one of a kind and anybody who knew him knew that he was special. He was our best friend, literally. Our house is just not the same without him. He was the livelihood of this family. Who is going to greet me at the door with a silly little sock now? Who is going to bark when someone comes up the driveway? Who's going to lay on the special Mav spot on the sofa? Who is going to eat all of our leftovers? How am I going to get through this? It's just unthinkable. I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that we thought we were taking him to the Vet to help him with his knee or hip and it ended up that we came home without him! Gage slept in our bed last night, and in the middle of the night he started to cry in his sleep. I woke him up and cuddled with him, but it took quite a while to get him calmed down and back to sleep. The best I can do is just keep explaining to him that he is in heaven now, and he has no pain now. That he is chasing squirrels and sharing a steak with Grandpa Ray. He was set on having Mav buried in our backyard, but after much contemplation and rationalizing we decided that waiting until the ground thaws to put him in a hole was not what we wanted to do. Gage even agreed that is not what he wanted to do, so we are having Mav cremated where he will be safe in a precious Urn inside the warm house and we will even recieve Mav's paw prints with it. After talking with Gage I realized that he just wanted to be able to put a picture that he drew with Mav, and I told him that we can do even better. We can frame his picture, and it can sit right next to him. We are going to get a special tote to keep all of Mav's things in. I actually sat with his blankie this morning and held it to my nose so that I could smell him. I want to keep it just the way it is. We also want to gather all of our pictures of him and make a special book to keep forever. We will never forget him in our hearts whether we have these things of his or not, but I just can't bare to part with them. We all stayed home today, because there was no way any of us would have made it through the day without being by each other's side. I was trying to keep busy this morning after shedding so many tears and making so many decisions in such a short time so I started cleaning, but I actually felt like I shouldn't vacuum because it felt like I was going to erase Mav away. I know that I have to vacuum, but I don't think it's going to get done today. We have had so many friends and family supporting us through this terrible tragedy. We have received a heart shaped Isabel Bloom with a puppy on it and so many condolences, and some friends even brought us pizzas and pop. They all love us, and they all loved Mav. We are so thankful that we have all of them to help us get through this, and I am thankful they got to know Mav. It's just unexplainable, and it hurts. My heart aches, my stomach hurts, my head is throbbing, and I cannot stop crying. Everything I see reminds me of Mav. Every time I close my eyes I see him, and I can't get the sounds of his painful cries out of my head. I need time. Things will just never be the same for this family. I wish with all my heart that we could have brought him home with us, but it just couldn't happen, and somehow I need to come to those terms. We will treasure our time that we had with him forever. We love you with all that we have little buddy! You were with out a doubt the best dog in the whole world, and you brought us pure joy! We will never forget you! We miss you so much it physically hurts! Enjoy your new life, and we will see you when we get there my friend.