Our Very Sad News

Well I have some absolutely devastating news for our family. Our beautiful wonderful Maggie died yesterday - she had a Hemangiosarcoma on her spleen - a very aggressive and hard to detect type of cancer. Maggie travelled beautifully to Shanghai and was her lovely bubbly silly self until last Saturday night when she refused dinner and was generally lethargic. On Sunday she seemed a bit better but I noticed that she seemed a little bloated. She managed a few little walks so I thought she might have eaten something nasty but on Wednesday night I got up about 3.00am and she couldn't get off the floor (although she didn't seem to be in any pain - just more bloated than ever). Greg had managed to find a vet here (a friend of one of his colleagues - a British guy who has been living in Shanghai for a few years). Greg called first thing and we took her straight away. The vet did a needle biopsy that was filled with blood so we knew then that she had a big bleed hence the swollen abdomen. They then did an ultrasound and found that her spleen had numerous lesions and also had a mass on her liver. We decided to try and operate but when the vet opened her up there were just so many tumours. He also took out about a litre of blood from her abdomen. He advised that the kindest thing for her was to let her go under the anaesthetic as she would have had a couple of months at best. I am just so sad and feel so dreadfully guilty that we dragged her all the way here but both the vet here and our wonderful vet David in Australia assure me that it had nothing to do with the trip and it was just bad luck and timing and the tumour would have been there for a little while. I also feel dreadful that I wasn't there for her at the very end to stroke her beautiful head as she went to sleep. I am glad though that we were with her yesterday and she was still wagging her tail and knew how much we loved her and it did give us an opportunity to say goodbye but I am just so so sad. She was such a great dog and so much a part of our lives and we will all miss her so very much. She had a good long life and I suppose that is what we have to remember although it hurts so much now. Shay dropped a biscuit on the floor last night and just walked away - I suppose it will take a bit of time to get used to the fact that we no longer have our walking vacuum cleaner :) RIP Maggie the Wonderdog!!