Erol, my Brittany spaniel

	I would especially like to thank Marie-Noëlle for this testimonial.
	Despite all our care, Erol passed away on February 6, 2003.
Today marks one week to the day since Erol passed away. I'm still in a lot of pain, I can't get over the fact that I won't be seeing him at all, that it's all over. It's still very, very painful. It's still very, very painful, I think I think about it too much. For his age, he would have been 14 on August 10, Saint Laurent's day to be precise, the feast day of Laurent, my young son. He's 26 now, and this disappearance has affected him a lot too. Erol started having problems two years ago, and they've been getting worse lately. First of all, he had rheumatism, which deformed his front legs, making it very difficult for him to walk these days. Then there was the after-effects of his perineal hernia operation, which caused him heart problems. I had to give him heart pills for almost two years, and he eventually stopped taking them. The operation had gone well, and we thought everything would be all right afterwards; but he had poor healing from the operation, so we were constantly giving him rear-end care. On Wednesday evening, I carried my dog next to the bed so that he could fall asleep next to my husband. He'd come on his own, but I thought it would please him to sleep next to his master as he usually did. Unless it was just a hunch, his last night with us. Then on Thursday, horror struck, at 6 a.m. my husband woke up as usual and called me, saying "Erol, my god my dog", I got up in a hurry and all over my apartment there was blood everywhere, in every room, it looked like it had been emptied; my husband rushed over to Erol, then he said to me it's okay, he's alive, everything's fine, I was scared. I had this nightmare vision of Erol's death. I had this nightmarish vision of blood revealed all over the apartment and of my Erol looking so weak, I cleaned him up with a little water to take him to the vet I'd called, in the meantime... My thoughts, at that moment, were more than confused between the idea of death for him a deliverance and the return of my Erol in better shape after the visit to the vet. But I was very scared, in fact. As I left, I thought about it, but I really hoped the vet would find a miracle solution. I'll skip the details of the end of his life, his head resting on my arm, I was crying so hard that the pain I was feeling became unbearable. Today, my tears are still flowing, I just can't accept his absence.