I have been a horrible blogger to start the 2023 year. It has been a rough start to a year as I have slowly watched Moki's tumor grow. On top of dealing with Moki and her cancer MaRee Acebo was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away on April 2nd. That was truly tragic and heartbreaking. I have loved being able to marco polo with so many friends from high school. Angelee did such a great job of keeping us updated on her mom. Cancer is a thief of time, especially pancreatic cancer. Her mom lived 66 days after she first went into the hospital. It was fast and so brutal. I know they had a lot of sweet moments but losing a parent is the worst. Their entire family has been on my mind so much this year. I have shed so many tears for them. Here at home I watched Moki'd tumor get so stinking big. It was crazy. The last time I measured the tumor it was 13 inches round. I traveled to California for spring break, more on that in another post, during the break it became obvious how much pain Moki was actually in. It was really hard to watch. When I got home from spring break I knew it was time to Euthanize her. I knew I wanted to do it at home, if possible. I called and scheduled the appointment for April 18th.
I scheduled her appointment on April 10th, the 18th was the soonest they could come. The next morning Moki demanded that she come on my morning hike with Eric and Jacquie up Slate Canyon. I let her come thinking she could walk around the parking lot and then would get back in the car. Not my Moki. She refused to get back in and did the entire 2 miles. I love her so much. She loves hiking and got in one last hike with one of our favorite hiking crews. She was completely exhausted when she finished. her entire body was shaking. At this point her tumor was already slowly bleeding in two spots. It definitely bled a lot more for a couple of days following the hike. She worked so hard. I just love that she knew she needed one last hike. It made me question if I should actually be considering euthanasia . . . . but her tumor was bleeding and I was doing so much laundry to keep everything clean and sanitized.
Leading up to the date I was able to compartmentalize and still have a pretty normal week. The weekend before the 18th was so freaking hard. I told all the people that love Moki the date she was to be euthanized and I allowed people to come say goodbye. Watching people say goodbye over and over almost did me in. It was so so hard. That was one of my last gifts to the dog that gave me so much. I let anyone who wanted come love on her. She loved everyone so well and so there were a lot of people that came and said goodbye, friends and family. I just cried from Saturday until Tuesday, and reliving it right now I am crying again.
On Sunday the 16th my family was all over for dinner. Moki bumped her tumor on the dog door and the tumor really started to bleed. I was able to get the bleeding stopped but this confirmed it was time to put Moki down. Monday night I took Moki up Slate Canyon. Summit and I hiked and then I got Moki out to just walk around and play in the water that was flowing. Moki's tumor opened up again and bled like crazy. It was bleeding so much I was really worried. I got the bleeding stopped and we just rested in the grass while I had a good cry at losing my best hiking buddy.
I took Tuesday April 18th off work. I slept until I woke up. I was going to hike with Summit but then I realized that I wanted to spend all the time I could with Moki, even though it felt hard. We first went to the Slate Canyon trailhead. I let Moki limp around, sniff a bunch of things and of course mark the area. Then we headed to Utah Lake. I let Moki watch the geese and put her feet in the water. We came to the lake a lot when Moki was a puppy because she loved the water so much. She loved to swim. I was hoping she would choose to swim but it was a little cold and she just dipped her feet in.
Then we got her a sausage egg McMuffin to eat on the way to rock canyon.
At Rock Canyon Moki started jogging up the trail. She loves rock canyon. We found a beautiful meadow to sit in and just enjoy being outside. It was such a nice day. We hung out at rock canyon as long as we could until I had to take her home for her appointment. Leaving Rock Canyon was dang hard. I knew Moki needed to be put down but other than that stupid cancer filled leg she was still so pleasant and happy. I loved that dog so much.
Dan and Megan came to my house to be with me for the Euthanasia appointment. It went really well and was pretty peaceful. The vet was so nice. Moki was able to eat bacon while she fell asleep. The vet took her body to the crematory. It was an emotional day. Tuesday was actually really nice. The days leading up to Tuesday felt like torture. It is always weird how life just goes on after loss. I am so grateful I am not worrying about Moki, I worried a lot her last few weeks, but I still see her favorite things and miss her. I hope she is in heaven chasing all the deer, swimming in all the lakes and loving all the people. That dog knew how to love and she knew how to adventure. She was the best traveler right up to the end. I feel so lucky and blessed to have had the perfect dog for me!
