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| - Friday evening, I got a call from my mom that the family dog, Smoochie, a 10 year old English Mastiff was suddenly in extreme pain and wouldn't stop shivering. My mom rushed Smoochie to Arrow Animal Hospital around 8pm, and they did a very thorough physical examination of him. It became apparent that he had an enlarged spleen and he was in an extreme amount of pain. He was prescribed pain killers and was sent home with a follow up appointment for the next day.
The next day was a Saturday, and my mom called me at 6:30 in the morning and told me that Smoochie had declined drastically overnight and that I should come out there. I live in California, so within 15 minutes of receiving her call I packed a bag was on the road. She rescheduled his appointment for later in the afternoon so the whole family could have a discussion about our options. Almost as soon as I pulled in to my mom's house, we got Smoochie in the car and drove to Arrow. We were given a room pretty quickly, and they performed a second physical exam on him and same as last time, his spleen was enlarged. The vet staff took him back for X-rays so that we could know what exactly we were dealing with. They managed to get a 100+lb English Mastiff who was in pain to cooperate for X-rays, which is pretty impressive.
About 30 minutes later, Dr. Bechtel returned with Smooch's results, and they were grim. Dr. Bechtel was incredibly empathetic toward our family as she delivered the bad news to us: his spleen was enlarged because he had a type of blood cancer, causing his spleen to swell with blood the couldn't be filtered along with the cancer that accompanied it. She didn't beat around the bush about anything. She respected us, and so she told us the honest truth as tactfully and sympathetically as possible. We asked many questions, and she answered them all honestly with his best interests at heart. It was a grim prognosis that wouldn't have a happy ending.
Ultimately, we decided that the humane thing to do was to have him cross the Rainbow Bridge surrounded by his family since nothing could have been done to improve his quality of life. He ran the risk of his spleen rupturing, and if that happened he would have bled to death in agony, and he didn't deserve that. Dr. Bechtel treated Smoochie as though he was a member of her family during "the Crossing of the Rainbow Bridge", and she treated him with the utmost respect and showed him so much love during his final moments. Smoochie was like a brother to me, and as much as I miss and hurt for him, I am comforted by knowing that Dr. Bechtel treated him so beautifully, both in life and in death. My family and I are so grateful for Dr. Bechtel and her team for the amount of love, respect, and humanity they displayed.
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