My Sweet Fur Baby Hiker

 I don't know if anyone even looks at this blog anymore, but if there is anyone out there, I wanted to let you know that on October 12, 2020, I had to have my best friend, Hiker put down. She was only 10 years old. She was suffering from liver failure. It came on very quickly. I had some benign lumps removed from her in late December 2019. They did bloodwork on her at that time and everything came back good. In late August 2020, I noticed she was not eating normally. Her routine was starting to change and eventually, she started to show signs of fatigue. I took her to the vet and they ran bloodwork again and noticed her liver numbers were a little high, but not a lot. They put her on some antibiotics, thinking she may of had a infection or bacteria and they also put her on a special liver medication. I was supposed to take her back in two weeks for a follow-up. She seemed to get a little better, but her eating habits grew even worse. She was hardly eating at all. Before the two weeks were up, I took her back to the vet and they ran her blood tests again. This time, the liver numbers had gone way up, so they did an ultrasound on her. The ultrasound showed that her liver and spleen were enlarged and inflamed. They kept her for 2 nights. It was the first time since I had adopted her (9 1/2 years ago) that she and I did not spend the night together. They let me bring her home with more medications, but she would not eat that day and the next morning, she was throwing up blood. I knew it was time to let her go. It was the second hardest thing I ever had to do. The first was when my husband was dying and I had to make the decision to stop his medications.