Kota: Time Will Tell

Since Kota’s “agitated liver” diagnosis has been made, he’s returned to his liver support pills. His belly, due to the malfunction of his liver, has really been bothering him. He used to wake me up two or three times at night to go potty. Now, it’s increased between seven to ten times. He will not go potty but what he does is lay in the grass. When he lays in the grass, he will stretch his front legs completely out as far as you can, and his head will settle between his legs. His back legs will be stretched out all the way behind him with his paws exposed. He is trying to reach the fire in his belly and put it out.

What you see in the picture below is he is laying on what they call a Summer Ice Pad for dogs. The purpose of this pad is to keep the dog’s body cool in the summer-time.

For him, he will not get off of it even in the coolest of weather. Speaking of cool, the cats think this is the neatest thing they’ve ever seen. Flash will pull it off of the dog bed, then dive underneath it. And she will wait, baiting the others until they come along and attack her.

At this point, Kota comes over to me. I can just see it in his eyes: he’s asking me, “Mom! Help me!” Then I go over and break up their game of hide and seek, restore order, and put the pad back on top of the dog bed. It’s a game we play daily. More than once or twice a day. Honestly, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve had to break up this game of hide and seek.

The pad brings him such great relief. Having it here has also cut down the number of times where he interrupts my sleep so he can go outside and sleep in the wet grass.

He is showing intense signs of nausea: yawning, lip-licking, blanket licking. He will be sleeping, and suddenly he will whip his head around and look directly down at his stomach and then just start licking his tummy. So now I have him on Prilosec.

I have been doing a lot of self-reflective thought, along with filling my days up with prayer. I have reached a decision, one that was extremely difficult to make. If his levels do not decrease or if they increase, instead of going ahead with a very invasive biopsy, I will instead just let go and let God take care of him. I will allow Kota to be a dog, until he decides he doesn’t want to be a dog any longer. That’s when I will take him in and spend the last moments of his life with him before they let him go.

Even if I had the money for this very invasive surgery, I wouldn’t put him through that. The recovery time is hard. There’s a chance he could die on the table. There’s a chance that all kinds of things could go wrong. It’s not a chance I want to take.

Don’t get me wrong: I love this dog more than life. Half of my heart broke when Michael left. When Kota leaves, the other half of my heart will go with him.

I am at peace with my decision. I am praying that his levels will go down and normalize. But if they are still elevated within three months, I may even just take him off the medication. It’s getting increasingly harder to recognize him based on his behavior since this diagnosis. I hardly recognize him anymore. I am having to learn what his new “tells” are: how he shows me he’s in pain, how he displays his need to go outside and go potty. All of it has changed.

When people come to visit, he no longer runs to the door to greet them. I find him during the day, just staring blankly at the wall or the door. If I stand behind him and clap, my hands, he will not respond. If I stand in front of him, he will not break the stare. Even the presence of his tennis ball will not stop his trance-like state. I just have to wait it out. Time will tell.