Our Husky Kira Passed So Suddenly 🌈 Here is the Story

I feel like I should start this video off with guess what we're doing today but that doesn't sound like a fun start to today's video but I guess that's what we say at the beginning right? Guess what we're doing today. You guys want to see a fun video go watch last week's video it was super fun. This week's video is going to be the story of what happened to Kira. And I want to tell this story for two reasons. One, I know a lot of you guys have a lot of questions. Please feel free to leave them in the comments. And I may do a video like I did with Memphis where I answer some of those questions. And two, if by any chance this can help one person figure out what's going on with their dog so that maybe they could, I know, they could have some kind of a chance to fix it, then this video is worth making. I will say this, we did not have a chance to fix Kira, even if we would have figured it out when she started showing symptoms, but some of you may be more lucky than us. Hopefully you'll be way more lucky than us, and you won't have to go through this at all, because this has been horrible. I mean, losing Memphis was hard, but at least Memphis was 13. Like, you kind of expect at some point, once they get a certain age, that you're gonna lose them, but Kira was seven and a half I don't have anything on my hands. I didn't eat anything. Oh, I guess I made your dog food, but I washed my hands. So first, I guess I'll start this off. Eleanor's doing okay. Most of you guys know she doesn't do very well alone. She doesn't like to be by herself. She loses all of her confidence when her sisters aren't around. So, so even though she has, she's almost five years old now. Which, by the way, she has a birthday coming up. If you want to send her something for her birthday, we do have a P.O. Box. And we are going to do a fun birthday video. And we want to make it as fun as we can. So if you guys want to send her a letter, a card, or a package or something like that, you can send it to GoneToTheSnowDogs, Eleanor's Birthday, P.O. Box 12, Alpena, Michigan, 49707. Also, please do not feel like you have to send anything. And then those of you that were asking about sympathy cards and things like that, somebody asked if they could send gift cards for Jamie and I to get food. Same P.O. Box, just don't put Eleanor's birthday on it. Please don't feel like you have to send us anything. Again, this is just for those of you that keep asking. Is this all you want? Is this what this video is going to be? Super you up close snuggling me? I think everybody would love that. I really, really do. I really, really do. You think I'm kidding, but she has sat in my lap. This has been kind of what Eleanor has been doing a lot of lately. Wanting to be really close to us. Wanting, I'm holding, I guess, switch hands. Wanting the extra snuggles. I don't know how you need extra snuggles. You're the only one getting snuggles. You're the only one left. Okay. I have rambled long enough at the beginning of this video. Oh, you, yeah you are feisty. You really do want to play. All right. Okay. Let's get on. with the story. So most of you that are here know we have a vlog channel over at youtube.com slash snowdogs vlogs and we also have a shorts channel over at youtube.com at snowdog shorts. On both of those channels we had been talking about Kira's back issue. I didn't talk about it a lot on this channel because I just hadn't gotten around to it yet and we've been talking about it so much on the other channels. So let's go way back and start at the beginning. Just kidding. So Kira, right before we went camping, Kira started having what we thought was back pain, well, which what they said was back pain. We had noticed that when she was like trying to get up on the couch and stuff, instead of jumping, she would like put her front two paws up here and like climb up onto the couch. Which was weird and I noticed that one day and then the next day, Jamie got home from working on the house and she did not want to jump up on him. Kira was always a gentle jumper. She would jump up on people and put two paws on them and do these big stretches. And she did it to people she loved the most and she didn't want to do that, which was weird. So I told Jamie, I said, I'm just going to take her in and see if they can figure anything out. So I took her to the vet and the vet checked her over and again, this was right before we were going to leave for camping And they said... Yeah, she has an acute back injury. We don't know how she did it. Well, we didn't know how she did it. And we thought, you know, maybe with how rambunctious these two could get, especially like running into the yard, there was a thought that maybe they ran into each other and that maybe Eleanor hurt her back. So she got put on some anti-inflammatories. We got the okay to go camping. Dr. Ryan did not think it was like a major back injury. Like she didn't have to be on bed rest or crate rest. Basically what he said is try to stop her from jumping and don't let her go like at a full speed run because she could injure it more. But that was pretty much it. Like, so he said, I said, should we still go camping? And he said, absolutely. Take her, go camping, do your stuff. You know, so we did. There is a whole camping series over on the vlog channel. I know I posted a little bit of it here, but if you guys want to see the crazy camping videos, they are over on the vlog channel. That was a big yawn. So we went camping, did all that, got back from camping. She had a recheck because her back was still not 100%. He checked her, said everything was looking good. Well, then we were preparing for the Novi Pet Expo. Which, yes, we do have a Novi Pet Expo video that we are going to put on this channel as well. You can go see most of the stuff over on the vlog channel, but I want that last Pet Expo video with Kira to be here as well. So that will be coming as well. Make sure you subscribe, click that bell, turn on all notifications. So, right before we went to go to Novi, so we got home from camping on Friday. Sunday night, Kira had an upset tummy. Like so upset that she kept me up all night. We were inside, outside. She was going to the bathroom. She had diarrhea, all that stuff. It wasn't great. But then the next morning, she kind of did better. I started doing the things I knew how to do, like the probiotics and some of the other stuff that I have to help them with upset tummy. And the same thing happened Monday night. So I took her into the vet because that's what I do. Thank you, and... And speaking of... There are a lot of people that have told me many times, you know, oh, you take your dog to the vet too much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, guys, seriously, if you have a weird feeling about something that's wrong with your dog, take them to the vet. I would rather be wrong. Like, I would rather go in and have them tell me, oh, you're just a crazy dog mom. That's okay. I would rather have you tell me that. So trust your gut, people, because this entire story, I trusted my gut. It still didn't end the way we wanted it to, but trust your gut. She got stomach upset. We went to the vet. They gave her some medicine. We ran a whole bunch of tests. We sent things out for testing. Everything came back beautiful. We said, well, she probably just ate something weird while she was camping and it gave her a tummy upset. We were supposed to leave for Novi on Thursday. I had decided if she wasn't better by Thursday morning, we might not make it to Novi. Then Jamie said we would go anyway and that if Kira still didn't feel good, she would take turns. Like he would just keep her up in the hotel room. Well, long story short. Thursday morning, we got up. She was normal. She had made it through the night and we're like, okay, well, I guess we're going. So we went to Novi. We did Novi. That was great. We came back. She had a few other, you know, like issues with her back. I could tell she was uncomfortable. So I made her an appointment where I believe it was that Tuesday. After we got back, yes, because we got back from Novi on Monday. So Tuesday, we went back to the vet and she was she still had a little bit of pain in her back. So we were like, OK, we're still going to take things easy. But it looked better. Like Dr. Ryan would push on her spine in certain spots. The first time when it hurt, it was a loud yell. The last time he did it, she definitely you could tell she was feeling better. Well, it seemed like she was feeling better. Hindsight's 20-20. She definitely was not. So anyway, she was doing laser therapy. We started doing cold laser, taking her to the vet. She was going three days a week. We were going to do three days, three days, two days, one day and see if that helped her. Well, from that Tuesday to that Friday, you could tell that she still wasn't very comfortable. She had laser therapy Friday morning. We got her in the car and she kind of fell over. There's really no other way to explain it, but she kind of like tipped over in the car in the front seat. I thought that her leg had kind of gone down between the seat and the door. So I had to get out. Dan was with me, the guy who edits all these videos. He was with me and Jamie was staying here with Eleanor. So I got out and I walked around and she wasn't standing up and it was weird. And then I kind of started to panic and I was getting ready to go get Jamie. And all of a sudden she popped right up. She jumped in the back seat where Dan was. Because, yes, Kira did get to ride in the front seat, even though somebody else was in the car. Jumped into the back seat where Dan was and laid down. And we're like, oh, okay, well, that was weird. We'll tell them when we get there. So we get to the vet's office. We do the laser therapy. I tell Andrea, the girl that's doing the laser therapy, what had happened. She went and told Dr. Ryan because he was there. And Dr. Ryan, who I love, I love everybody at my vet's office, all of them, every single one of them. Dr. Ryan gave up his lunch so he could see Kira that Friday at lunch. So we took her in at one o'clock that day. He checked her over again. And, you know, we still really just thought she was having back pain. So, he put her back on the anti-inflammatories. This time, we were going to put her on them for a month to see if it worked. Because she'd only been on them for a week to start. She was on them for seven days and we took her off of them. And then we didn't want to give them to her because she seemed like she was getting better. And he said, let's put her on them for a month and we'll go from there. Okay, so we put her on the anti-inflammatories. That was Friday. Saturday morning, we got up. She was fine. She ate breakfast. She went outside. She did all of her stuff. And then... We went to the shelter to go see the kittens and we came back and my friend Nick was here and he got to see her as well and she got really excited and she jumped off the couch and she ran over there to say hi to everybody and then she got really wobbly and she ran through this room and she fell. Again, we were still only calling it falling because she was fully awake when it was happening. She fell right here and just kind of went down into a lay down like she just boom A very strange lay down, but she did. So we started checking her over. I'm like, something's wrong. That was a very clear fall compared to the one before. So it was the weekend, of course. So I called our local urgent care and Dr. Capello was there. So we kind of told them what was going on and while I was on the phone with them, I checked her gums when I made the phone call and then I was on the phone with them and I checked her gums again and she was completely pale, like completely pale, which if you guys don't know, that is like crisis. You need to go. You need to get your dog to the vet. Something's going on. So, Dan picked her up. Jamie was out at the house, out at the house working. Dan picked her up and put her in the car with me. My friend Nick. Thank you, Nick. I'm so glad you were. I'm sad that you all had to go. I'm sad that all of you had to go through this with us, but holy cow. Nick was here so Eleanor didn't have to be by herself because I didn't know how long we were going to be gone. I called Jamie. He was going to head back into town. I had to tell him that she kind of went down and we were going to the urgent care. Dan picked her up, put her in the car for me and off we went. When I got to the urgent care, they were there to unload her from the car. Her color had pretty much fully come back by the time we got to the vet's office. She was jumping up on the counter. She wanted her treats. It was very, very strange. Now I'm going to back up a little bit I noticed a few days before that Friday episode that when she was, and we will insert a clip of this because I want you guys to see this and know that this is a signal that you need to take your dog in and have them checked out. We noticed if you watch this video, not only did she not really want to run, but if you look close at her leg, you can kind of see that it looks like her muscle is jiggling as she walks. This is not a spasm. This is kind of as she puts her foot down, there's a little bit of a jiggle. Okay, so back to where we were. Back to the urgent care story. So we get to the urgent care. Start telling them everything that was going on. I had told her about the muscle thing that we had saw. I had told her about her falling the day before. Like I said, it wasn't like a pass out. It was a fall the day before. Or... What's that page for? You don't like me telling this story either. I don't know how I haven't bawled my eyes out yet. I can feel it, but I'm doing pretty good, right? Until I look at you and remember that you're the only one and then I get sad again. Okay, so. We'll get to the urgent care. They run a whole bunch of tests. They kind of tell us, you know, we think it's, they call it a vasovagal syncopal response. So what they kind of thought was happening, again, because we thought it was a back issue, was they thought that her back, I'm going to use you as an example, that her, hi, that her back, because her back pain was like, okay, I won't use you as an example. Her back pain was kind of right in the middle, that it was pinching the nerve as she was moving And it was causing so much pain that she... She was kind of falling down. We weren't really calling it passing out again at that point because she wasn't passing out. She wasn't fainting, she was still awake when it was happening, which is why it was so, so weird. So she gave me Dr. Capello, you know, they listened to her heart. They did all this stuff. At that point in time, she did... She did kind of... Thank you, Eleanor. Thank you, Eleanor. At that point in time, she did kind of say, you know, that there was other things that it could be. She did mention a heart issue, like heart disease or something like that. But, you know, we live in a tiny little town and they don't have big fancy machines. We don't have all that stuff here. So, you know. We were still leaning towards more that it could be the pain response so we took her home and we got a couple different medications we came home with. One was a muscle relaxer and one was like a nerve blocker and they told me to start her on the muscle relaxer. She was on the anti-inflammatory and then to start her on the muscle relaxer and then to put her on this nerve blocker on Monday if nothing like changed. So that was our plan. We came home. She did go down again when we got home, but now we were kind of more prepared for it. We're like, okay, we don't have to rush her back to the vet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, later on, she went down again and I didn't like it. And I called the urgent care vet again. And her normal vet, Dr. Ryan was actually there that day, which he's not normally there. He was filling in for one of the other doctors. So it was amazing that he was there. So we went back in, took her in again and had a big, long conversation with him. And basically, you know, He kind of told us he still thought it was a pain thing, but also said that if we want further diagnostics and further testing, he told me which vet hospitals to call downstate and who to talk to. And so my plan at that time was to call on Monday and see if we could get her down for a MRI with neurology down at Blue Pearl in, what was it, Farmington Hills. That was our plan. We were going to call on Monday and see what we could figure out. So we came home. Well, we made a stop on the way home and we took Kira in with us to a pet friendly store and she went down right in the lobby. And again, even though she went down, she was alert. Like there was people there and she was all excited to see them. And even though she had gone down, she was still looking at everybody. And I should also say that these episodes were only lasting like two minutes, not even. It was so strange. She would go down and she would pop right back up like nothing was wrong. And she would walk around and she would run around and she would... It was weird. So anyway, that happened and then we made it here and she slept on the couch next to me till 2 o'clock in the morning. I was terrified to get up because I was afraid she was going to go down again. So, it's two in the morning. We got up. We let her outside. We went out with her. She made it from the couch to the landing to outside. Jamie and I both went out with her and she started to get all wobbly because that was what would happen. She would get wobbly and then she would kind of go down. Like I said, it was kind of just a lay down. Well, this time I caught her and she was out. She had fully fainted. Like there was... She was fainted. Completely pale, fainted. I panicked. We all kind of panicked and she popped right back up. And I said, well, if this is what they think it is, and it's a pain response, you know, maybe these, they said it was going to take like 24 hours for the medication to kick in. So since we had just started it that day, we thought we had time for the medication to kick in. So we thought, okay, when she popped back up and she ate, she drank, we took her to bed. I said, we're going to go to bed. We'll get up in the morning and we'll see how she's doing. So she got up the next morning and. She ate breakfast, she said hi to everybody, like she got out of bed and was doing okay and then I let them outside and she kind of, Eleanor ran to the back of the yard for a squirrel. Kira kind of followed her and of course I was out there and all of a sudden Kira turned around and looked at me and I could just tell that she was, that it was going to happen again. So she started to come towards me wobbly as could be. I ran towards her And I caught her as she was going down. And again, she was completely fainted, completely out. And that was kind of, that was it. I'm like, that's it. We have to go downstate. Now, where we live, the hospital is three and a half hours away. I don't care. We're going. I came inside. I packed a quick go bag. We called them. We found out that we could go down there. They could hospitalize her overnight. And then they could get her in for emergency neurology the next day. So since we thought we were going down there for an MRI, and again, Dan was in town, Dan and I headed down and Jamie was going to stay here with Eleanor. So I'm sorry, this video is ridiculously long, but I don't care. I have to tell the story. I'm telling the story. That's what this is. So we loaded her, we loaded our stuff, we loaded her in the car, and we headed to Detroit. Took us three and a half hours to get down there. We stopped for gas along the way. She stood up in the back of the car. She was just fine. I didn't let her out to go to the bathroom in those three and a half hours because I was afraid she was going to go down. So we just kept her in the car because she went right before we left anyway. We got down there. We got out at, we ended up going to Blue Pearl of Southfield, Michigan. Because that's what they told us to do. Because the Farmington one, anyway, that's what they told us to do. So we went to the Blue Pearl in Southfield, Michigan. We walked through the, we got out of the car. She was all excited, happy as always. We walked through the door and she fainted. I caught her again and she fainted right in the lobby as we walked in the door. And because they all saw what was happening, they immediately called back and they took her away and they took her back for triage. And we waited. They came in. With a ridiculous estimate of all the things they wanted to do, and I said, I don't care, do it, just do it, I don't care what it costs, fix her. And again, we thought we were going, dang it, I almost made it through the whole video. We thought we were going for the MRI for neurology. They were back there for what felt like forever, and then the doctor came in and said that she had a heart murmur. And I said, well, that's crazy because Dr. Ryan listened to her heart for like 20 minutes the day before and heard nothing. But she hadn't had an episode then. She had just had an episode when they took her back. So they were able to assess her as what was happening was happening. They said that she was blue because she was getting lack of oxygen from fainting. So they were pretty sure they were going to have to give her oxygen. She definitely needed to be hospitalized overnight. But then she told us that. What she told us next, I didn't hear anything after that. She said that she has some, they scanned her heart and she had something on her heart. And this person was not a cardiologist. So she said it was either a blood clot or a mass. I didn't hear anything she said after that. I don't know if anything she said after that would have even mattered. But I, she kind of said, you know, we're going to hospitalize her overnight. The cardiologist will come in in the morning. They had some more tests they wanted to run. I said, run them. So I lost it. I called Jamie. Jamie almost drove down that night, but it was dark and it was late. And we still really didn't know what was going on. Like, we didn't know that it was going to be as bad as it was going to be. Don't worry. Jamie ended up coming down. So we ended up. They ran a bunch more tests, and then they came back in, and they said they did three different scans, or they scanned her heart three different times, and the doctor, who again was not a cardiologist, said she was pretty certain it was a mass and not a blood clot, which is the worst news possible, because a blood clot, we might have been able to do something. So we had to wait till the next morning for the cardiologist to confirm everything. We left her there hospitalized overnight because she needed oxygen, and when we left, Because she was in crisis and because she was in such a bad shape, they told us to make sure we left our phones on because they honestly didn't know if she was going to make it through the night. That's how bad she got that fast. It was so fast. Way too fast. So we ended up getting hotel rooms. We tried to eat food. Honestly, you guys, I don't think I ate for like three days. It was crazy. I think I had like a chicken tender and two and a half chicken nuggets and that was it. We went and got our hotel rooms, and I called Jamie again, told him what was going on, and told him I would call him in the morning, and that we were just going to try to get some sleep and hope that the phone didn't ring. I woke up the next morning and finally decided I would call Jamie because I was just scared. I didn't want to call him. I knew he was going to be scared when the phone rang, no matter what, so I kind of tried to wait. And I called him, and again, we're three and a half hours away. And he goes, I said, are you driving? And he goes, yeah. I said, oh. He goes, I'm bringing you Eleanor. I'm on my way. I'm 45 minutes away from you. So Jamie came down. He brought Elle. Which worked out perfect. I made sure we got a dog-friendly hotel, but I forgot to tell them when I checked in that we might be bringing a dog. So Dan went and talked to the people at the front desk at the hotel we stayed at, and they were absolutely amazing and said it was absolutely no problem, and they didn't even charge us a pet fee. Which was very nice of them, and you know, sometimes in situations like that, those little tiny gestures mean a lot, and it did. Anyway, Jamie got down there, we waited and waited and waited for the phone call. They were supposed to text me a photo of her, and I was getting nervous because they hadn't, so Dan actually called the hospital. And then they texted, you know, they told us that she had made it through the night and everything, and they texted me a photo shortly after that. And then shortly after that, we got the phone call from the cardiologist. And it was confirmed that she had a mass on her heart, which most likely was a hemangiosarcoma. I can put the words right here for what it was. Those usually present on the heart, spleen, liver, and skin. They are a blood vessel style of cancer. They grow extremely rapidly. In some breeds, they are genetic. They are not genetic in Siberian Huskies. They actually don't really know what causes them. dogs and it's called the silent killer. They call it the silent killer for a reason because by the time you know it's there there's nothing you can do. So the cardiologist called and told us that and then said that we possibly had two options and wanted to know if I wanted him to call a cardiologist specialist for dogs in Colorado and there was one in Chicago and one in Ohio I think And I said, yes, because I would have literally sold everything I own to save her. So they contacted them and sent all of the papers and stuff to them. And sadly, there was nothing there was nothing they could do. And then the doctor even told me that even if we had figured it out a month ago when her back pain started, they still wouldn't have been able to do anything. It's very rare for these tumors to be on the heart to actually be able to. have anything done. Sometimes they can put a stent in to make it so the blood flow, because she was passing, she was fainting because she had a lack of blood flow. Sometimes they can put a stent in to open up those arteries, but that usually only gives the dog, if you're lucky, three to six months. Like nothing is going to stop this. Very rarely can they remove the tumor, but even at that, sometimes it comes with having to remove big parts of the heart. Hi, Eleanor. So, we had to make the decision to let her go. And you know how they always say, a dog will tell you when it's time. When we got there to see her, you guys, it was time. She was tired. I don't know how she made it through the night. I really don't. It was bad. It was really bad. She went downhill in the span of three days so rapidly. And I don't... I don't want to say she died of a broken heart but that's what it feels like. It feels like she missed Memphis so much she died of a broken heart. And I know that's not what it was. We know what it was but that's what it feels like. So this is a really long video to tell you that story and to tell you that if you guys ever have a gut feeling that something is wrong with your dog just take them in or at least call the vet and ask them. Like you know the weird thing was is like I did We noticed little things changing Kira and I took her to the vet and then the little weird motion in her leg and I took her in. And again, this isn't super common where it was at on the heart. So unless your vet has seen it a whole bunch of times, they might not catch it right away. I was also putting everything into Gemini, like everything. And it, it never really came up with, it did come up at one point in time and say it could be heart disease, but never did it say I would say it could be this. It's just one of those things. It's just one of those things. And we had to help her cross over the Rainbow Bridge, and it was ridiculously hard, and she was only seven and a half years old, and it wasn't fair, and I already did a video where I cried through the whole video. This is... Hi, Eleanor. This is to help you guys. The reminder that, you know... Life is short. Make memories with your dogs for Pete's sake. We just did an amazing camping trip with her. She got to do the Novi Pet Expo. Just like Memphis, Kira had seen both oceans. She'd been to Canada. She was 14 weeks old when she had her first cross-country road trip. Like the memories we made with her will last us a lifetime even if she didn't last us a lifetime. And I know a lot of you guys are wondering if we're going to get another dog. We have to. We were planning on getting another one after we lost Memphis, but our plan was to wait till spring. We were going to let those two be just those two, and we were going to wait till spring, and we were going to find a spring puppy. And that was kind of our plan, but now we have to, because Eleanor can't be alone. It's not fair to her. I know she doesn't understand what's going on. So here's your ridiculously long video. To tell you what happened, hopefully I remembered all the details. I think I did. If you have questions, leave them in the comments below, and maybe I'll do another video where I answer those questions. And I know this was ridiculously hard to watch, so if you made it all the way to this part of the video, down in the comments, type hashtag fluff cancer. One day they'll find a cure for it, right? One day. One day. But anyway, this was way too long. This was way too much talking. This sucks. It all sucks. Yes, there will be a Kira coloring book, just like the Memphis coloring book. We have the Memphis coloring book. We have the calendar for this year. Those are all available in our Etsy shop. If you guys haven't seen those yet, I haven't really done much promoting of them on this channel at all, but they are in our Etsy shop if you want to get them. Sorry you're alone. I'm sorry that I did everything I could and I still couldn't save her. And unfortunately, that is life. It doesn't matter what you do. You can feed your dog the best dog food. You can feed them raw. You can do everything, quote unquote, the right way. It still doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. None of us are going to make it out of here alive. That's just life. I know that sounds really dark, but it's also true. And because of that, you guys, go do something fun. Go do something fun with your dogs, with your cats, with your whatever, with your family, with your friends. Don't let life pass you by. All right I'm done rambling. All right you guys I don't think anybody enjoyed this video but I hope you found something informative out of this video. We miss you Kira. You were literally the best. Thank you to everybody that was here during this. Thank you Cyber Husky came to see us down there. Anthony from Evertrue came to see us. Dan was here. Nick was here. My friend Andy. All of my friends that showed up for pumpkin carving because I don't know how but we still carved 103 pumpkins for Halloween. Go watch that on the vlog channel. Thank you to everybody, all of my amazing family and friends who have been here for us through all of this nightmare. We love you guys too. And everybody in the Pawdience, each and every one of you, we love you as well. We're not stopping. We're not going anywhere. We push through. We've got to keep making memories with these dogs. Thanks for watching. Thanks for subscribing. Stay positive, dream big, and we will see you again soon. Good night, Pawdience.