Kimba

I lost my best friend today.

I found Kimba while I was working. I used to share my lunch with her every day. One day the property manager called the (not so) humane society to pick up this stray dog.

I called my wife and asked her "What she would do if I brought home a dog?" She told me "Don't you even think about it." Well when 5:30 rolled around, I pulled up in front of the house with Kimba in my lap. My wife yelled from the front yard, "Get that damn dog outta here!"

That was over 11 yrs ago. Kimba was my best friend. She laid in the garage with me while I worked on different projects. At night, she always laid on the floor right on my side of the bed. She would sit and kiss me until her tongue made my skin raw. She was always there to greet me in the morning and at night.

As she got older Kimba started having trouble with Arthritis. At one point the vet said she had only six months left. We kept taking her for shots and started her on a regimen of glucosamin. Kimba responded wonderfully to the treatment and all was well.

About 17 months later my wife called me at work, She told me my dog was having a hard time breathing and that she was taking her to the emergency vet. I left work and meet her there.

The emergency vet diagnosed her with Laryngeal Paralysis, the paralysation of the muscles that control two flaps of skin in the throat. These flaps prevent the animal from aspirating food or water into the lungs. They also noticed that she had developed ulcers on her tongue.

The emergency vet wanted $1800 dollars to treat her, which included anestitizing her and putting a tube down her throat. They would not guarantee that they could help her.

At this point Kimba is 14 yrs old and has had problems with her arthritis. I elected to take her home and visited my own vet the next day. After a quick examination, he suggested that given her history of the arthritis and that "I should take her home and spend the weekend with her." He also indicated that unless she had licked some caustic substance that the ulcers were an indication of "Some serious internal problem".

I took her home and babied her for the rest of the weekend. On Monday, when I was supposed to make some sort of decision about her fate, she seemed to be doing allot better and she was moving around better.

I decided to wait to see how she would do later before making my decision. All was well for about 4 or five days. Then Kimba suddenly started to have trouble standing and walking on her own. Again I was faced with a decision, but as fast as it was put before me, it was removed when she became able to walk without assistance again in two days. All was well until about four days ago when she began to refuse to eat and when she drank, she would immediately vomit it back up.

Today, I took her to the vet. I was definitely not prepared for what I would discover. After examining her, the vet discovered that Kimba had lost part of her tongue to the ulcers and that the ulcers were a form of cancer that had migrated down her throat into her digestive tract.

I held her close to me as the vet administered the shot that would put her into an eternal sleep. I kissed her on the head and told her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. I held her tightly and talked of all the good time we had together. I whispered goodbye to her and asked her to wait for me, because I promised her that I would see her again.

I miss her so much.