Oh, look. He's got a big smile on his face! He looks so happy! This picture was taken in July 2003 at Nopporo Minami Animal Hospital. At that time I was in the U.K. and my husband went on holiday to Okinawa for a week, so we left Kanta with the vet for a week. He was always well-treated at the vet during his stay, going for a walk twice a day and best of all he was very attached to and loved them. Thanks to them, I could go away on trips without anxiety. I really appreciate their support.
Today mini narcissus in my garden came into bloom! Aren't they lovely? They are shorter than the normal ones and about 15 centimeters high. The weather forecast says it's going to be warm this week. I wish Kanta was here, I could take him for a walk in this mild climate. I miss him so much.
In the early hours of 5 April (Saturday), Kanta died a sudden at hospital.
I got a phone call from the vet at 2:30 am. which said that unfortunately Kanta passed away and asked us to come to the hospital at 9 am. He was hospitalized on Friday with pneumonia so when I received the phone call, I thought he'd died of pneumonia, but it wasn't that.
Next morning, my husband and I headed to the hospital, feeling totally depressed. There were three doctors-Professor Kadosawa, Kanta's attending vet and the vet on night duty. The professor explained what had happened to my dog in a slow drawl. It was like this: Kanta had been in stable condition in hospital and the vet on night duty saw him walking in the cage at about 1:00 am, but the next time he saw Kanta at 1:30, he wasn't breathing, which means the vet found him dead. It could have been a heart attack or some kind of attack, he said.
I feel very sorry for him as he died alone.. I was always telling him, 'There's nothing to worry about, Kanta. I'll be by your side when your last time has come.' But I couldn't keep my word. Sorry, Kanta. I love you and thank you for being with me for twelve years.
The vet took the chest X-ray and it turned out to be an aspiration pneumonia...When he threw up, he was lying down, so it happened. It could be my fault. I should've done something to prevent it. But I didn't know what I should do. I feel guilty with him for causing this problem. He's been hospitalized again to be treated intensively with antibiotics. I just trust his strong survival power and the vets.
It's Friday morning, I'm at home waiting for the vet to open. It was a long night for us. During the night, he got a 40-degree temperature and his breath was too fast, 50-80 a minute! I didn't know what to do. I inserted fluid with medicine into his mouth using a syringe and place ice packs to his femoral artery(if it's called so) to lower the fever. I'm not sure how it worked, but now his temperature's gone down to 39.4 degrees. At any rate, he's in kind of critical condition, I guess..Is it because of the medicine, Adriacin-the anticancer drug he received yesterday or anything else??
Thursday 03 April, today he's back home after staying at hospital for two days, which was shorter than I had thought! When I went to see him in hospital yesterday, he looked blank because of medicine he was taking. He didn't seem to recognise me, even tried to attack me, but he no longer had enough power to do so. But by this morning, he'd been stabilized-his fever has gone down and he's begun eating, so he was allowed to leave there.
But at night at home. when he was lying on the futon, suddenly a bout occured and then he vomitted. After an hour, he started mouth-breathing. Oh, now his breath is very fast. I've got to go.
Today I had an appointment at the vet and Kanta has been hospitalized. The problems are: 1. He's eaten nothing since 21th March, 2. Since 28th, he fell down, bent his head backward and stretched out his legs every day-five days in a row.
The vet said it looked like his nose cancer's invaded his brain, sadly. To make sure, they'll scan his brain with CT today and tomorrow he'll be given an anticancer drug by i.v.drip infusion. This time the dosage would be half of normal. Also he might receive radiation treatments as soon as the machine is fixed.(It's been broken..)
I feel as if it's my fault coz I noticed some symptoms a few weeks ago, such as shaking his head hard, scratch his face and lack of appetite. I could've done something for him.
I just hope it's not too late and all I can do now is trust the vets.
