In May 2006, Dixie was diagnosed as being diabetic.  I took her to the vet and he prescribed insulin for her and told me how much to start her out with which was 3 units.  Then he told me to bring her back in a week, which I did.  Her sugar was great so he said she was regulated.  I know now how much I should have read up on diabetes but I didn’t.  He didn’t tell me to bring her back for another check up and she was acting great so I figured all was fine.  Then the week of August 28th, she started having some diarrhea but my other dogs did too so I thought maybe it was the new food I had bought.  Hers persisted a bit longer and I told my husband on Friday night that if she had another runny poop that I was going to take her to the vet the next morning because of it being labor day weekend.  But Saturday all was fine and seemed to be normal.  I noticed during the next week that she was drinking more water again and I will never forgive myself for not taking her to the vet, I guess I wasn’t thinking.  On Sunday morning September 10th, when we got up she was walking a little sideways and it was like she didn’t have her wits about her.  I had to put water in her mouth, and then I injected her insulin and got her to eat a little.  She went to the vets Monday morning, her sugar was up and he believed she had had a stroke so he kept her overnight.  I went to see her on Tuesday morning and Tuesday at lunch.  I asked him if I could bring her home and bring her back every morning and he said that would be fine.  When I got back to get her that afternoon he said she had looked for me from the moment I left.  We continued this routine all week and I took her in on Saturday morning.  He felt like we needed to drop her insulin because we had gone up so high during the week.  We had found out earlier in the week that her insulin was bad and we had started her on the good insulin but we were up to 8 units.  So we dropped her down to four units for the weekend.  Saturday she acted like her old self, barking and growling at the other dogs and wanting food.  Sunday she was lifeless again.  She was the same way on Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesday afternoon he had her sugar down to 180 and I thought we were getting somewhere, once again we had hope.  Wednesday she was lifeless once again and Wednesday night she started breathing weird and she would just cry out.  Then she would have shallow breathing for a while, then the weird breathing would start again and she would cry.  She would still drink water but got to the point where that was difficult too, so I gave her water through a syringe.  I held her the whole night and I would lay her on the floor if she started acting like she wanted down but she never got up.  So I would lay beside her holding her paw and rubbing her back.  My husband got up at 3am and I had not been to bed.  I told him if she was still with us by the time the vet opened that we would have to take her.  So on September 21st at 7:50am we took our Dixe to the vet so that he could help her go to Rainbow Bridge.  It tore me up to see her like this and to see the pain she was in the night before was agonizing.  We dressed her in her favorite sweater and had a funeral for her.  We loved our Dixie with all our hearts and really at this point don’t know how we will go on without her.  We take comfort in knowing that she doesn’t hurt anymore.  We can see her now running and jumping with the other animals and having a wonderful time.  One day we will join you again Dixie when God decides that it’s time.