A sad Saturday....

Here we go again! 

This time it was Rusty who crossed the Rainbow Bridge, on May 24. 

We adopted him from Sis1's barn where he'd been dumped. 

 So we don't have any idea how old he really was. 

4/29/17

the day we brought him home.

This was the day before his 'adoption' - completely uncaring that I was standing there holding the leadrope of a grazing horse.  

He & Daisy did a lot of snuggling. 

He was all cute with the Spouse.

Me?  I got smashed. 

So what happened began Thursday 5/22 - he'd been fine.  He jumped up on the bed like usual when I got home from work and we had our "together" time. Then sometime after that, he went to stand up and all he could do was circle to the right.  Obviously we were concerned.  We did a little research and honestly were hoping it was his ears or something.  But we decided to call the emergency vet and take him in.   Dumb me, didn't think to grab a cat carrier, so they put us right into a room so he could get down.  We noticed that he was walking ok, but as he cruised the perimeter of the room, he kept bumping into corners and such. 

They checked him out and they basically thought he'd had a stroke!  They showed us that he couldn't see out of his left eye and when they messed with his whiskers, he didn't do anything.  

So we got sent home (at 3am) with antibiotics and steroids and to follow up with our vet.  Friday he seemed as OK as could be, I got him some soft food to go with his meds and he went crazy over it.  He wasn't happy about the pills (I still have the scratches to show for it) but ate the food all up!  The Spouse said he used the litter box, etc.  Saturday he still was the same.  But when I went to give him his evening meds, he was laying on the floor in the bedroom with his leg twisted awkwardly underneath of him, so his left paw was by his right hip.  It took me a minute to even figure out how he was arranged!  I checked to make sure he wasn't broken and set him up on the bed.   He wasn't interested in the food and it was like his left legs weren't working. He was lethargic so I just held him for a long time, then the Spouse took him so I could eat dinner, then he (Rusty) wanted the Spawn to hold him, but when she took him, I saw his eyes were open wide & dilated and he opened his mouth and drool just poured out.  So I called the vet again and they said to bring him right in.  They were waiting for him and took him right back.  

So of course there were options.  They could have done MRIs and hospitalized him, but being away from his people wouldn't have made him happy.  They could have ran all sorts of tests, etc.  But again, would it even have helped?  Would he get better or would he be unable to walk?   There were no guarantees.  So we decided to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge. 

We weren't able to get him in at the same emergency vet that we took Maddie to, so it was the same yet different.  This place took us into a dimly lit room with a comfortable couch & chair, with a Himalayan salt lamp and noise machine playing ocean waves and let us spend as much time as we wanted with Rusty both before and after. 

He always loved the grandkids. 

And the grandkids loved him back! 

Bags were always inspected. 

No box was ever safe, either. 

Moral support - sick grandson and injured me!

Early Saturday before we said goodbye. 

His little box matches both Maddie's and our late dog's (I thought I had a post about him, but I guess only about how we got him).  And the Spawn still hasn't told the Grandkids that's he's gone!!  They just think he's either hiding or just not where they are at the moment.  Poor Daisy is all alone now!   She did see him before we went to the vet, so she had to have known something was wrong.