Thank you all for your support and your thoughful comments.  I know that I'm the only one who can make this decision.  I think part of my doubt is whether my friends influenced me with their comments.  One thing I've learned from this is that I will never ever tell someone that I think that they need to let their dog go (I never have before, but now I never will).  It's such a personal decision.

Jackie, yes, part of my doubt is not knowing for sure.  I think if the MRI had confirmed a brain tumor, this would not be quite so hard.  The doctor had "informally" aspirated the lump and thought it was cancer, and I asked them to send it to the lab so that I would know for sure that it was.  I guess I needed formal proof that the cancer had spread before I could stop fighting it with chemo and start thinking about making Percy comfortable.  At the time, I thought that decision to stop fighting was hard.  Now that seems so much less hard than the current decision.

kbear, this is the first time I've ever done this.  I can't imagine going thru all of this again.

cometdog, I know exactly how you feel about not wanting them to die without us.  I've taken off work the last two weeks because I wanted to make sure that Percy's last days were comfortable and that I would be with him.  The friend who felt more strongly about not waiting until Tuesday also commented that I could not take of work forever to nurse Percy which is making me wonder if that comment had anything to do with my rush to schedule on Thursday.  I know that my friends meant well in stopping by and offering support, but now I'm sort of wishing that they had not come by at all.  This issue about getting back to work bothers me a lot because I know I've put work before Percy before.  What is really killing me is that about three weeks ago was our spring break.  One of my students wanted to submit a paper for a conference whose deadline was at the end of spring break.  Because he had been working hard on it, I felt I needed to help so I worked with him pretty much all of the break instead of spending some time with Percy.  At the end of the week I decided to take the last week of March off to spend some time with Percy.  But the week before I was going to take off, Percy's symptoms got worse which led to the brain tumor diagnosis, so I spent that week nursing Percy rather than taking him to do something fun.  I hate myself for not taking off during the break and missing that last chance to take Percy to do something fun.

You're right, am I making this decision for me or for Percy.  Anything that keeps him with me longer will be in part for me.  I guess I'm trying to figure out if there is anything for him in it.  I am not sure that I've seen the "look" yet. 

Beth, I've been looking for the "look" too, and am not sure that I've seen it yet.  And I wonder if I am too close, and my friends are seeing something that I'm refusing to see.  I think I'm grasping at straws hoping that Percy will get better.  But it is so hard to let him go.

I've also got this other crazy fear that once Percy passes, that the crematorium may not give me back the right ashes.  So I've arranged to take Percy there myself and found a place that will allow me to witness the cremation.  They have also been very accomodating about working me in on Thursday, so that's another worry, about cancelling on them.

This is so crazy.  I hate this decision almost as much as I hate the cancer that is taking Percy from me.  I am sorry for all of the rambling here.

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your support and for your comments.  It helps to hear what other people think are important and how you all made some of your decisions.

OK, so I'm going to continue rambling.  I actually learned a lot in the past few days, so maybe my rambles will help someone else in the future.

Percy is still with me.  I was up until after 5 am last night trying to convince myself that I should go thru with this, but it just did not feel right.  He had two bad days, but yesterday was a good day.  My vet was very kind.  I called the office this morning and he talked with me for a while about Percy's symptoms and what they meant.  He does not think it's a stroke and doesn't think Percy will get better, but also did not seem concerned that Percy is suffering.  One of the difficult things about this is that Percy does not appear to be in pain.  If he were in pain, the decision would be more straightforward.  He has trouble with coordination and difficulty walking but usually he either sleeps or is quietly alert.  I've learned that his periods of agitation are not seizures, they are him saying, "Mom, I NEED to go out NOW!  Come on, why aren't you helping me outside???"  The fact that Percy's vet actually did not seem concerned that Percy is suffering made me feel much better about my decision.

When I first called the vet about an appointment on Tuesday, they told me that he would not be available until next Mon or Tues.  I was actually happy about that, Percy had an acupuncture appointment scheduled for Wednesday and I thought that would give me time to see how he does and if nothing else, the acupuncture might help him pull thru comfortably until next week.  I know we don't have a lot of time left, but I didn't think he was there yet.  Then one of my friends came over, and I know she absolutely meant well, but I'm finding that she and I think very differently.  She said three things that got to me.  First, she didn't think he'd make it another week.  Second, I may not want to put Percy thru the trauma of additional doctor's visits in the last few days of his life.  And third, that I can't take off from work indefinitely just to nurse Percy.  The second two things, I suppose, do have some logic behind them.  But the problem, I'm realizing, is that she doesn't know Percy like I do, and why was she worried about when I went back to work?  I felt bad about those things though, and remember saying to her that I really didn't mean to be cruel in taking Percy to the doctors visits, I actually think that the acupuncture might help.  But I thought about what she said and then cancelled the acupuncture appointment.  Then I thought some more and started scheduling for Thursday.  She had also told me that if I wanted things to work as I desired (to let Percy leave at home and to take him directly for cremation myself), that I'd have to plan it.  Planning it made me sick, but I was so far down that path that I couldn't see why I was sick about it.

Last night I finally realized that this is not a decision that I can ask anyone else to help me make.  Like Jerry said, I have to make it completely on my own.  I realized that a lot of what I'd done the past few days was because of what my friend said.  If I continued and regretted it, even though I know my friend meant well, I'd probably lose her as a friend also because I'd be resentful of her for the advice she'd given me.  But I also wanted to make sure that I didn't allow Percy to suffer in order for me to "make a point" of doing what I wanted rather than what my friend suggested.  That was the hardest part, trying to figure out if Percy would be ok to stay with me for a while.  Talking to his vet helped me make that decision.

So I've decided to go back to our original path of acupuncture this week and we'll see what happens next week and am so much more comfortable with this path.  I'm not going to do any planning, whatever happens will work out or I'll find a way to make it work out.  I have some backups -- my horse's vet said she'd try to help me out if my vet could not come over -- but that's about it for the planning.

We were able to get an acupuncture appointment today and have gone and Percy is very relaxed.  The doctor did tell me that for cases where the patient is "on the fence", acupuncture could help, or the body could take the energy for one last good night, "one last hurrah", and then give out.  So we'll see what happens.  I'm going to hope for the best and brace for the worst.

Sarah, what you said about it being planned makes perfect sense and it was a bit part of what was bothering me.  I remember my first thought when I finished lining things up on Thursday was, "I can't believe I just made plans to kill my dog."  The planning and listening to others instead of figuring it out myself were the main problems.

I had wanted to take Percy directly to the crematorium afterwards so that he would not have to stay somewhere else in between.  But this morning, the thought of going from living breathing Percy in the morning to a box of ashes at night just horrified me.  So I may have to rethink that when the time comes.  And this means then that I don't need to plan for this.

And the last thing I learned (or remembered, as you all have said this many times), is that this really is a roller coaster ride.  There are bad days, but also good days.  We had two bad days in a row and I didn't expect that we might still have a good day left.

Karen, thanks for Maggie's story.  I haven't gotten the look yet either and didn't feel right giving up.  I'm glad to hear that someone else trusted themselves and persisted and it turned out to be the right thing.  Hopefully this was the right thing for Percy as well.  Jerry, thanks for the reading list.  I've read thru your story many times the past few days.  I know that the important thing is what's best for Percy.  I tend to be the kind of person that will fight until the very end for those that are important to me, which makes me worry that I'm in danger of letting him suffer, which is why I've been so quick to wonder if it might be the time every time he has a bad day.  It sounds like we don't have much time left.  I'm hoping I'll be able to make the best decisions for him in this time.

Hi Shari,

The reason it was Thursday or Tuesday was because my vet only works some days of the week.  And it turns out that the cremation place usually does its individual cremations on Tuesday.  Part of what I was finding so weird about this whole thing was having to schedule this event around such "trivial" seeming reasons.  I know they are not trivial to those people who are providing these services to us, but given that it involves the life and death of my dog, it's just a weird thing to be scheduling around.

I think I may have to just take it a day at a time, and when the time comes, do the best with the options I have available.  I really would like the vet to come to my house, but Percy's quality of life has to be more important than how I let him go.  I had not thought of asking the vet if he might do it in my car.  Percy's roadtripped with me all over the country so the car might be kind of homey and a possible compromise.  Thank you!

My vet has been amazing to us.  He was very kind today when I expressed my doubts.  It's making me want to be even more careful about asking him for appointments because I don't want to take advantage of his good will.  I think the cremation place had a harder time with my cancelling and hope I did not inconvenience them too much.  They were also really nice in trying to fit us in today.

Thank you for talking about your cremation experience.  I had not thought about how difficult that might be at all until this morning when I was horrified at the idea of having Percy in the morning and a box of ashes at night.  My vet had said that they could keep Percy for me if could not get an appointment at the cremation place right away and I'm wondering if I might need to do that.  Give me a chance to get used to Percy being gone before I take him there and come back with his ashes.  Given that I think I'm now going with minimal planning, it may just work out that way.  Did Belle stay in your car all night?  How long can they stay with us after the vet visit?

It sounds like Percy is in a similar situation as Belle.  He has a hard time walking so I'm carrying him often.  But other aspects of life seem to be ok, he sleeps well, has an appetite, drinks water, always tries to tell me when he needs to go out (I'm the one who needs to listen better).  The difficulty walking is a big reason I'd been thinking it might be time.  But he hasn't given me any other indication that I can remember, so I don't know if I missed it or if he's still willing to stay with me.  I do want to be careful not to cause him to suffer.  It's so hard not to be selfish, but I'm trying.

If you don't mind my asking, did the symptoms from Belle's stroke become apparent suddenly and immediately?  Percy's symptoms came on relatively fast, but still over a period of days to weeks.  That was part of the reason my vet did not think he had a stroke, and that it is more likely a brain tumor.

AJ