Before I begin I just want to say that most of you all have already heard about the loss our our pup, Bella, but I haven't been ready to document it here until now. Thank you so much for all your love as I was/am grieving her. Sending you a million hugs.
Bella came to us quite by surprise in August of 2009. When we lived in Wenatchee one of the things that my kids and I did on a regular basis was visit the Humane Society. It was a win win, really. They needed people to come in and handle and love on the kitties, and well, we just happen to be really good at that. One day when we happened in there she was, a stray, mop of a dog that the employees told me was a Scottish Terrier. We fell in absolute love with this bouncy, affectionate, sweet girl and adopted her pretty much on the spot. I'll never forget picking her up from the vet after her initial check up; he asked me if I knew what I was in for with a terrier and two young children. Uhhhhh, no? Yes? Queue the deer in the headlights look. However, Isabella or Bella or Bellie, as she quickly became known, was a sweet as sweet could be, and we were ecstatic to have found her.
Back in November when we started noticing some strange skin lesions we figured she had an allergy or something along those lines. Our vet couldn't pinpoint it either but gave us some cortisone pills and cream that kept it calm while we waited (six weeks!) to get into a dermatologist. We finally saw the derm who told us what we really didn't want to hear; advanced Lymphoma. Because she wasn't showing any signs of slowing down or sickness at this point, we kept her on the meds to keep her comfortable, which ended up slowing the spread a bit as well. The weeks ticked on until finally Jon convinced me it was time to let her go. She had gotten to the point where she seemed uncomfortable, would occasionally cry out when she was asleep, didn't want to do much of anything, and for the first time ever, didn't constantly follow me around. We lost our first pup, Decatur very suddenly in 2010, but because H&H were so little I wasn't present when we euthanized him. All this to say I had no idea of the trauma I was in for when we took her for her appointment. I won't go into it because honestly, it still feels so raw, but I will say it was horrible. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was hysterical. Even though we had all those months to prepare ourselves for our goodbyes, I wasn't ready. It felt so very wrong to end her precious life, and I don't know if I'll ever recover from that experience. If it's possible to be kindred spirits with a dog, she was without a doubt mine. I miss her so very much.
Sweet Bella. Thank you for being in our lives. Thank you for protecting our children and our home. Thank you for making us laugh and giving me that soulful Scottie stare. Thank you for "playing piggie" with Jon, and hide and seek with us. Thank you for never turning down an opportunity to play fetch. Thank you for keeping Chip kitty from being too big for his britches. Thank you for being ours. You were our best friend and we'll always love you.
Bella 2008-March 24, 2021
1 comment:
Oh Kristen!! What a sweet tribute to Bella. It made me cry hearing stories of all the love and then the heartbreak of saying goodbye. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It is really is so hard to lose a good friend.
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