My Angel and my world sums up what Ambrin Meshaun stands for. If you haven't read the story about Cinnamon Su, you won't completely understand the story about Ambrin. Cinnamon sent me Ambrin when she crossed Rainbow Bridge. I couldn't live with out Cinnamon and Cinnamon wouldn't eat or drink anything if I was gone so we had made a pact whereas, if either left the other, the other wouldn't survive. Well, I guess God and Cinnamon had made a pact, too!! It's wasn't time for Mom to go anywhere. So, Ambrin came into the picture and I so want to tell you about her.
Since day one with Meeshie, I have always felt the presence of Cinnamon. Somehow, I had Cinnamon and Meeshie all in one! I knew that physically my sweet Cinnamon had gotten her wings and was now a Spirit. That Spirit had manifested itself into Meeshie so, I had the best of both. On January 11, 2011, my baby wasn't feeling well. We took her to the Vet and they diagnosed her as having a pancreatic inflamation (Pancreatitis). She was given IV fluids and was put on a very strict diet of no greasy foods, no animal fats and no bacon! She loved bacon. We bought Pedigree+ Healthy Digestion and she did just fine. After a couple of days she was back to being her playful self. It gave us quite a scare tho!! I never want my baby to be in pain, ever.
From the first day Meeshie always got a doggy jerky type treat before going to bed. She'd jump up on the bed at the first sign I was getting ready for bedtime. She had to have her 'stick'! As time went by, it was her only stable. When she could no longer jump up on the bed from the floor, I put a hassock next to the bed so she could jump up on it and then onto the bed. Eventually she could no longer jump up onto the hassock so we just gave her the 'stick' on the floor. She never missed a night. Sometimes when she had a case of the munchies, I'd come out of a room and she'd block me so I couldn't get past. She sit and look up at me and I knew, she wanted a 'stick'! Sometimes she even got two!! When we adoped her from our local Animal Control, they told us that she had been found walking the streets and her only survival was trashcans. She never really outgrew that. If she saw a trashcan, she had to look inside. If she found food in the trashcan, she had to eat it. It was always fun trying to keep her out of the trash. There was a good side tho!! My husband had to take the trash out every night!! LOL When her brother, Bozwell Moses, an English Bulldog, came to live with us, she showed him how to get into the trash. He was scolded and really never went as far as to eat out of the trash but he did like to check it out while passing thru!
January 07, 2013 is a day we hoped would never come. Our baby was sick again. We took her to the Vet and they thought she might have a tumor on her liver. They prescribed Prednisone 5mg because she didn't have much of an appetite, Metronidazol 250mg and anti-infective and Trama-Dol HCL 50mg for pain. She appeared to have arthritis in her back legs and might be suffering from a mild form of dementia. Her labs came back and we were given the choice to have her euthanized or take her home to die. It was inevitable. Her prognosis was very bad. I couldn't have her euthanized. I can't take the life of a living being. Only God gives and takes away life. That night I held her and told her how much I loved her and that I am just not very good with things like this. My husband and I both prayed as hard as we could that if He was going to take her Home, please let her go in her sleep. No suffering, no having to watch her lose control, just let it be peaceful. The next morning we awoke to my little girl wanting to go outside to do 'her job' and making her breakfast. The good Lord gave us 9-1/2 more months. That was 9-1/2 months we wouldn't have had if we had euthanized her. She didn't deserve to die on our schedule. It has to be on God's schedule. I'm still discussing the fact, with God, that he has enough animals in His Kingdom, can I please have her back?
I can't say the road was an easy one because watching a loved one grow weaker and weaker is very difficult. The selfishness in us wants to keep them with us as long as possible and it's very hard to separate our desire to keep them with us and the need for them to go. I gave her the meds faithfully, I put baby gates up to keep her safe and now it was accepting that one day she would be gone. She began to be more fussy about eating, she no longer played, she began to lose her eye site in one eye, she hated to have her nails clipped, she fought a bath, she basically wanted to be left alone. She began pacing and she would get near a wall and she would stop and think she couldn't get out and we'd have to touch her so she would turn around and see she wasn't confined. The endless pacing was difficult to watch. I tried to look at it as exercising. She no longer was interested in her nightly routine of getting a 'stick' to eat before going to bed. With time she began to lose site in her other eye. She could still see but we could tell her cataract was there. She began to lose the proper use of her hind legs. When she wanted to lay down, she kinda of slowly lowered her back end and then it seemed like she had changed her mind and rose up and walked away and soon she'd return and do the same thing. She wanted to lay down but then seemed to change her mind. When she ate, her legs would slide sideways and it was hard for her to stand back up. We put a rug under her feeding bowls and this helped to keep her from sliding. She has arthritis in her lower back and hind legs. In rainy, cold weather it seemed to be worse. Here in Colorado, our winters are brutal and it would have been horrible for her. As time went by she began to go downhill more and more. She had accidents with her bowels and bladder more often, I shampooed carpets every day, she hated to be cleaned up so often times she smelled of urine that had run down her tail and hind legs. Washing her up was a battle and I did it only when it was absolutely a necessity to her health and well being. Her dementia began to get worse and she fell down the stairs several times both inside the house and the deck. She was beginning the trek down the road to Rainbow Bridge.
It was our ritual to go outside to 'do her job' before we went to bed. I watched the news (10:00p) and she was sleeping on the dining room floor. I got up to fix my husbands lunch for the next day and then when she realized I was in the kitchen she came to see if there were any scraps for her. The medicine made her hungry and it was hard to keep her full. She was on a prescription diet of rice and chicken and we all know that it is easily digested and doesn't stay in the stomach very long and then top that with medicine that makes you hungry, it's a never ending cycle. I gave her a little piece of lunch meat and then she wanted outside. I let her out and the air was cold, around 41*, she went to the top of the stairs, took one step, turned around and looked up at me. I told her it was ok and to go on down and do her 'job' so we could go to bed. She went on down the stairs. I preceded to get her pill, wrap it in a little piece of bread and cut up the rest of the bread and put it in her bowl. I went back to the door to let her in and she wasn't there. She is always anxious to come back in and it doesn't take her but a minute to 'do her job' and come back upstairs. Now, to make this next part very clear, I was going either on instincts or God was guiding me, depending on your beliefs but, I reached over for the flashlight and went outside to find her. I walked straight down the stairs, across the yard and shined the light on the fenced in fish pond. What I saw is constantly with me, morning, noon and night. In my dreams, in my every moment. It was like if you took an 8 X 12 piece of sheepskin used to prevent bed sores, and placed it on top of water. I saw the furry mass and I jumped the fence and jumped into the water. I grabbed her up and then tried to figure out how to get out of the pond. With moss on the sides, it was very slippery. I made one attempt and slid back but then it seemed like I was lifted out because I just suddenly climbed out and carried my princess to the patio. I tried to revive her and I keep working and working on bringing her back. I screamed for my husband but he was asleep and didn't hear me. The doors were locked so I had to go upstairs and into the house and downstairs to wake him up. He came outside and again I tried to revive her. He reached down and touched her and I'll never forget the words he spoke, "She's gone!" NOOOOOOO!!! NOOOOOO it can't end like this. There has to be some mistake. I again began trying to revive her. Over and over I tired. Still nothing. Eternal sleep. Forever gone. Never coming back. Wait, she hasn't taken her pill! She hasn't eaten her bread!! My husband brought me back to reality and told me to go up and change my clothes because I was soaking wet and didn't even feel it. I'm sure the water was cold but, I didn't feel it.
My husband went back to bed. He couldn't sleep but he had to pretend to sleep so he could go to work the next day. I needed to talk. I needed to talk to anyone or anything, I just needed to talk. I got online and went to Facebook knowing that my closest friends had already gone to bed and usually the only ones online are those in other countries where it's the beginning of a new day for them. I posted a message letting everyone know my precious baby was gone. A PM came back and one of my closest friends who has adopted me as her Sister and vice-versa hadn't gone to bed yet and we 'talked' about what had just happened. God had intervened again. This lady always goes to bed fairly early. She lives in the eastern part of the United States and there is a two hour time difference between us but, for reasons neither of us can understand, she was awake and there for me!! She said she just wasn't sleepy and didn't feel like going to bed. We talked awhile about what had just happened and once I was finished telling her everything, she began to get sleepy. God had kept her awake for me and I thanked Him for that. Now I was alone, sitting in a quiet house, knowing that things were now going to drastically change. My baby wouldn't be back. I went down to the patio hoping she had begun breathing on her own, maybe she had moved alittle, maybe she was waiting for me because she couldn't get up, something!! No, she was still the same. I picked her up and held her and wrapped her in a towel. She was wet and still. Why? She hates water! There is a fence around the pond. How did she get through? I guess there's only these words to explain it, she did it HER way. I even told God, "You have millions of animals in Heaven, can't I have mine back for awhile more? I mean, you won't miss her. You have so many others." But, he needed her. She was very special and he needed her. She had left us at 10:35p on October 12, 2013. I didn't sleep that night. I had taken her to the garage, out of the cold, and several times I went out and held her. The next day before I called 5-Lights Pet Crematory, I let her brother Moses out to say goodbye. He sniffed her bum then put his face near hers. Not feeling her breathing he slowly backed up and looked at her for a moment before walking away. They came out to get her.....at exactly 10:35a. Twelve hours exactly. I didn't want them to take her away. Maybe she would still come back. Maybe she was just in a coma. Maybe her little heart would start again and maybe..........She has crossed Rainbow Bridge and is running, is playing, is happy, is being loved by those who have passed before her and somewhere in that group of people and animals is a little doggy named Cinnamon Su!!