Angeline 9-14 evening report

Tonight Vyto came with me to follow the blue dots that end with Angeline. The walk down the hallways feels surreal. It feels like this is a scene from a movie and at any minute someone will yell "cut" and life will resume as normal, all of this just a bad fantasy. But the scene is not interrupted, our progress is not delayed and one foot after another we follow the blue dots.

Angeline looks so small in her cage in the ICU. It takes my breath away. There is one really strong little girl inside that frail body and she is really fighting to stay alive. I wonder how it can be that I can love this tiny thing so much, a stranger to me just days ago. But I do. I say exactly that to her attending veterinarian. She tells me she knows, she just met Angeline a day ago and already she loves her too. She loves Angeline too. It so good to know that Angeline is being cared for by someone there that loves her too.

As I hold Angeline snuggled in, her eyes close and her head drops and she sleeps soundly in my arms. I don't want to put her down, ever. I want to send everything good in me right into her through my skin and warmth and energy. After a while she starts to get restless and I know she has to "go". I put her down and she stumbles around on her pee pad while I try to keep all the tubes and lines out of the way. I think afterwards she might want to curl up and rest in her cage but she does not. She teeters over and nearly pitches herself off the edge of the cage to be back in my arms. She settles back in and I hold her while Vyto strokes her head gently. We tell her how much we love her, how many people are pulling for her. We tell her how brave she is and what a good girl too. When it is time to go I kiss her head and breathe her in and it's so hard to put her down.

The news tonight is that doctors have now ruled out another thing, Addison's disease. We have added yet another supplement to her regimen. Tomorrow we hope that the TPN and the "good stuff" they are pumping in her stomach to heal those "tiny gut cells" can work their magic and that Angeline can start to turn a corner. We know she has a long road, we just want her to be walking in the right direction. And we'll be right by her side every step of the way.

I am aware that we don't want to make her suffer unnecessarily. Losing Angeline would be very painful but Angeline comes first. I had a frank conversation with the vet about this and she believes that Angeline has a fighting chance and it's too soon to wave the white flag of surrender. She believes Angeline wants to be here and if Angeline has not given up then I don't want to give up on her.

She seemed more alert tonight than last night. She clearly wanted to be held, to have that connection. She's still in there, still wanting to be here. For now, I'll take that.