Buffy was going toward the front door to greet Daddy upon arrival home at 1:30 am. She lost her balance and stumbled as if she was drunk and I screamed and started crying. I picked her up and held her as Daddy came in the door and I told him what had just happened. The next day was Memorial Day and we called a vet we had not been to before, he told us to bring her in and he would meet us at his office. He diagnosed her as "severely anemic" and she also had a gum infection. He gave her 4 shots and gave us 4 different types of medicine to start administering the next day (Tuesday). I kept her as comfortable as I could, but it wasn't enough. She vomited twice and when I took her outside to potty her urine was completely red (the infection was already into her blood stream). She was so weak that I had to carry her everywhere. I called the vet and told him how she was acting. I asked him "how long do we let her suffer like this?" He said it was our decision to make. He wanted the decision to be ours if we put her down and I respected the way he handled the situation. He did tell me, twice, that she is a "very sick little girl", and I believe, in those words, he was trying to let me know that it was already too late for her. So I made the decision right then to take her and put her to rest, the 2nd time I have had to do this to a pet in the last 4 1/2 years. It has crushed me completely, I have had her for 10 years and I love her so very much. I know the grief will get easier to bear in time, but for now, I am hurting more than I have ever hurt. I have experienced so many different feelings, but a feeling of guilt just overwhelms me sometimes and I don't know why. I know we couldn't have saved her, and I know we did the right thing.
I asked the vet if it was possible that she had leukemia and he said he wouldn't know without a bone marrow test. I looked up "canine leukemia" on the internet and she had a lot of the symptoms, so I'm sure that's what it was. I can't believe that it took her little life in just 38 1/2 hours from the first sign that anything was even wrong. It has devastated me to no end. The only thing that gets me through is that when I leave this world, I will be reunited with her and her sister, Cleo, and the one that we still have (Bitsy).