My heart is breaking

I haven't posted in awhile, despite having been very busy creating, because my camera experienced some technical difficulties, and I had been jury-rigging it (duct tape!) and limping along with it since Thanksgiving, but in mid March I decided to bite the bullet and take it to the camera shop. They don't do the repairs there; they ship everything to New York (I think) - and they told me it would be 2-3 weeks, and of course it has turned into 6 or 7 weeks, and they only called me 2 days ago with the estimate, so I know it will be many more weeks until I can post some new content.

In the interim, my sweet baby Bailey decided to become a finicky eater about 3 weeks ago, picking at his food lazily, but otherwise everything seemed fine. He has always struggled to maintain his weight (he could never get above 63 pounds). I drive an SUV, and it's kind of high off the ground, so when he started to limp on his right front shoulder/leg about 3 weeks ago, I figured he had re-strained his shoulder landing on it getting out of the car. It's happened a couple of times before.

My sweet boy, Bailey

We visited the vet, got some antiinflammatory meds, and he got a little better, but kept a residual limp. I had already increased the meds to the maximum dose, so when I ran out of pills, I called in for a refill, and went to get them last Monday. I took him with me, because he loves to go everywhere with me, and I wanted to recheck his weight anyway.

Well, he had lost down to 57 lbs, which really caught me off guard, and alarmed the doctor, who ordered a full battery of blood and urine tests. All the tests came back normal  - that was Tuesday - so the doctor told me he wanted to add another pain pill, and that I needed to do whatever necessary to get calories into him, even if that meant just feeding him treats. He had a terrific appetite for his treats; he just didn't want dogfood!

 my popcorn-loving boy

So I fed him treats, and gravy-covered treats, but he started to have terrible diarrhea, so we returned to the vet, and got more medicine - antibiotics and anti-nausea meds. That was yesterday.

Overnight he rallied a bit, but after lunch today he really started to deteriorate, and I had to lead him to the Rainbow Bridge at 4:45 this afternoon.

The house is just not the same - so empty - and I know it will be worse at the Shop, since he has worked there with me everyday, greeting the customers and keeping me company.

 Bailey, chillin' at the Bead Shop

He was the sweetest boy, and my heart is just breaking.