It's been an extremely rough week here at the Roberts household. We had to say goodbye to our sweet girl Kinny on Monday and we've been a wreck. It all started about 6 weeks ago when she started going downhill. She had again been losing weight and seemed really lethargic. We took her to the vet and they told us they thought she had chronic kidney failure. It explained her drastic weight loss and her super high creatinine values. We put her on a kidney diet in hopes of slowing down the progression but rather than eating, she avoided the kidney food.
We took her back into the vet a week later and the suggested we have her admitted to the animal hospital to get her on fluids and work to lower her creatinine level. Kinny spent 4 days in the animal hospital that week and they thought she was at a point where she could come home. We had her home for a few days and she wasn't doing much better so we took her back to the animal hospital where she spent an entire week on fluids and slowing getting back to eating and drinking.
When we picked her up, they warned us of a few signs that may tell us she may not make it. We kept a watch on it and were so upset that they couldn't find a cure for our girl. I spent the night crying and just holding her. She was and will always be my first baby and I couldn't imagine not having her by my side. That night D had to go out of town for a week, which made it so much harder to deal with but Kinny, Declan and I made the best of it. When I wasn't working, Kinny was by my side the entire time. She cuddled with me when we went to bed at night and sat by me on the couch after we got Declan to bed. She was struggling to walk, so I carried her everywhere with me. During the day, I had my mom and Michael stop by and check on her because I didn't want her by herself for 10+ hours a day. D came home on that Friday and picked up where I left of with the cuddles and spoiling her.
For the next two weeks, it seemed like Kinny was getting better. She started eating and drinking and going to the litter box on her own and even started hopping up on the couch and jumping off of the bed. We thought she was on the mend and felt a huge weight lifted off of us. Then last Friday night/Saturday morning, she took a turn for the worse again. Knowing she had pulled through before, we decided to wait a few days before taking her back to the vet. On Monday morning, she wasn't getting any better so we made the decision to call her vet and see if they could get her in. The vet told us that they had a full schedule so we decided to just take her to the animal hospital and see if they could help us.
I left work, picked up Kinny at home and we headed to the animal hospital. D followed us since he had to go get his second Covid vaccine but wanted to be there to support us and help me if we needed to make the difficult decision we were avoiding. After about an hour of testing, the animal hospital confirmed our worst fear. Kinny's creatinine value was at 12.5, which was over 6 times where it should have been and the other two kidney values were so high their testing system couldn't get a read on them. The ER doc told us they could try to bring them down but she'd probably spend the rest of her life hooked up to an IV to keep the fluids constantly running through her system and even with that, they weren't sure they would get them down. We knew it was time. There was no way I could let my sweet Kinny spend the rest of her life on an IV or in this state. It was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life but I knew I had to make it. Because of the pandemic, they only allow one person inside the hospital. They brought her out to the car for last minute cuddles from D and I took her back in with me. I held her and cuddled her to the very end and then spent another 10 minutes afterwards telling her how sorry I was for not being able to save her but I had hoped that I had done enough for her the 7 years she called us her family.
I had to go back to work afterwards and it was a waste of a day. I couldn't think, talk and spent my afternoon sobbing in my office. We had to tell Declan that night and that was another difficult talk. He doesn't quite know what's going on, but we told him Kinny had gone to heaven and would be looking over us. Somedays he still asks where she's at or tells us she's at the hospital getting better. It breaks my heart. I know we were lucky to have 7 years with her and I know for at least 7 years of her almost 14 years of life, we were able to give her so much love. She was and will always be our first "baby." She went on vacation with us, she had a part in our wedding, she went with us on our honeymoon, she announced when we were expecting our first human baby, she was her brother's ultimate protector, and in the recent weeks, she laid on my belly like she knew we were expecting our second human baby. I still get choked up knowing she's not here with us and even as I type this, I have tears in my eyes knowing she's not roaming around our house or sitting on my lap waiting for cuddles and kisses.
I know she is in a better place but I will always have a special place in my heart for my sweet girl.
Here are some of our favorite pics of our girl:
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