No answers

It's been over 2 years since my Shepherd/Husky mix died at 15. We began building a house (which she was supposed to move into with us and live out her time) a few months later so I at least had things to distract me as I researched finishes and worked on getting unpacked and settled once we moved in 15 months later. But recent events have caused my mind to circle back to her last few months that concluded a two-year downward spiral, for which I still don't have answers.

As we moved across town in the middle of that two years I had had to find new vets, and even though I was taking her to three clinics (a GP, a PT and a holistics vet) over her final year to try to restore her condition (walking, hair growth, appetite/weight gain etc.) it became harder and harder to get any helpful information as the doctors didn't call me back or respond to emails, and as her condition began to change almost by the day I had to wait 10-14 days just to be seen. During the final few months I was left to research things out online for myself, with no veterinary training and only what I knew of her history and what was "normal" to guide me. She had been on low-dose prednisone for 18 months (5mg/day), and a few months prior to her death I began weaning her off, gradually as it should be done. Her condition grew worse - which I thought was temporary and I was weighing this against the well-known side effects, and at first I blamed this on other things anyway. She continued to deteriorate while I kept scrambling and researching, finally taking her to a new holistic vet who actually listened to me and set out on a new course of treatment, but it was apparently too late as my dog died a few weeks later.

I've made various guesses as to the actual cause of her death, and my husband has told me repeatedly that I did all I could...but I can't help but blame myself for failing her. So many questions remain, for the vets and for myself:

-Why did she continue to get worse as I weaned her off prednisone? I came across prednisone-induced Cushing's and Addison's in my research (which the vets never mentioned) but the symptoms didn't match, and her own body should(?) have started producing its own cortisol eventually.

-If these were not the problem, had the prednisone actually been propping her up, as it were, keeping the deterioration at bay until I kicked this last figurative leg out from under her? She couldn't stay on it indefinitely but I apparently should have put her back on it until we found an alternative. Could she have returned to a quality life and lived long enough to move with us If I had? Did I kill her?

-Why did her 3 vets never make a connection between her extended prednisone dosage and the hair loss and muscle wasting, if there was such a connection? This possibility did not occur to me until very late, as she had an over-active immune system that had attacked her own body twice, and they always insisted that the prednisone was necessary to prevent another attack. But why did they never try to switch her to a different medication?

-Why didn't I at least find a new GP when it became clear that this one wasn't interested in helping her, and I had to run the gauntlet with his office manager just to get a message through ("He doesn't have time to return calls.")? At the time I reasoned that it was too much trouble to start over somewhere else, and how could I know the next vet would be a good fit? But in retrospect I tell myself that a different vet could have pointed us in the right direction even if he himself didn't have answers. An internist, maybe? An endocrinologist? Why didn't I think to cover my bases and find other specialists, before it was too late?

My family has asked several times when we'll be getting a new dog, but I don't have answers for them either. In one sense I want our house to have a dog again - several, even - but I never want to live through that last 4 months again, and I'm still angry and confused about why our lovely little wolf left us. In a sense I also feel like I don't deserve another dog.

My husband has patiently listened, telling me there's no point in dwelling on these things as they can't be changed. And I can't say what the purpose would be of finding answers, especially given that what I have learned points to my having ended her life prematurely. I'd like to know for certain that her body was simply shutting down and there was nothing I could have done to stop it, but in the absence of concrete facts I can't know that. And so the only option left is to blame myself. There isn't a point or a place to go from here; it just is what it is and I have to carry this guilt with me.

I post this partly in hopes that someone out there can offer information that will provide some peace, so I am still happy to answer questions and provide more details on her history and condition, if anyone has any helpful insights.