The weekend is upon us!

...and I'm thrilled! This is my last weekend off before Christmas. I can't believe that this year has gone by so fast! It seems like it was just Christmas last year and now, it's nearly Christmas again!

We're still missing our Sophie. I guess I'll feel better after we get her ashes back and she's "home" once again. Karl said tonight in an e-mail that the pain we suffer when we lose a furbaby (so much more than a "pet") is the price we pay for their unconditional love. That's probably true, and if so, we're really not paying a huge price. I can still picture her lying on the floor with a couple of her tennis balls, right next to me as I worked. She learned that if I took my headphones off I was willing to throw the ball, so as soon as I took them off, she was nudging me in the leg with the ball in her mouth. I actually wrote that entire thing without shedding a tear. That's certainly progress.

Steve had his 3 month checkup today. Dr. Y. took another biopsy from the area where the tumor was originally located, but he said to the naked eye everything looked fine. Yay. God took my dachshund - He is not taking Steve.

It was a relatively nice day today, in the 40s. I'm dreading the first part of next week, if the Weather Channel is correct. We're supposed to have an Arctic blast move through starting Sunday night. Temperatures down into the single digits with 30 miles an hour wind, gusts to 40! The weather radio today was saying wind chills into the -10 to -20 degree range. Oh, that just sounds nasty. I'm planning on holing up for the weekend if that's the case. I hate the cold. And to top it all off, the heater in Meg's car decided to stop working today. We're hoping it's just the thermostat, that should be expensive - should it?

Guess that's it. The end of a Very Bad Week, as Pooh would say. Good riddance. Here's to a better 2009!

Sophie Kurtz 8/99-12/08

This is so Sophie! I love this picture!

This was just taken lastnight. I'm glad she felt well enough to play. I'm even more glad she got to come home to say good-bye.

Well, Sophie lost her battle today and we sent her to the bridge. Less than 24 hours ago we were at the vet picking her up to come home, thinking she had turned the corner and was going to be fine. Funny how God has other plans for you sometimes.

She was almost back to her old self last night, we let her chase the ball a few times, but didn't let her do it very much because we didn't want to wear her out. When I went to work at 7, she was right there in her blanket and I felt like we were back to being complete - 7 is completeness in the Bible, you know. We were so blessed to have her back home.

About 9:30 I took her downstairs so she could go outside with no steps and so she could spend some time with dad down by the woodstove. She vomited again, but we weren't too worried, she hadn't vomited all day until then, which was a vast improvement over just a couple days ago.

When Steve went to bed about 11 he brought her up to the office and she curled up in the blanket again. About 12:30 I let her out again and when she came in she vomited again, but this time it was darker. I wasn't too worried since she had finally eaten something, so I just cleaned it up and she went back to bed. I got done working at 1:30 and rather than disturb her and the others dogs sleeping nearby I just grabbed a pillow and slept on the floor by them. I had to get up kind of early because today was our Christmas party/December meeting at work.

When Steve woke us up about 6:30 she had vomited again and it was dark - for some reason I didn't think anything about it. I put her in bed with me and we both went back to sleep. I woke up about 9:30 and she was just standing next to me, looking at me. I got up to find that Steve had put a couple of towels on the bedspread next to her when he went to work and there were 2 dark large spots on it where she had vomited - and I finally realized it was blood. From then until now seems like a total dream to me. Mom and Bob came over because they were going to watch her while I went up to the hospital, which of course I wasn't going to do now! They left after a bit and Steve came home. I had called the vet and told him what had happened and that we felt she had suffered enough and we'd bring her in so he could help her on her next journey to the Rainbow Bridge.

At 1 we took her in. I had asked Dr. Jesske earlier if he would do a necropsy to see if he could figure out what was going on. He asked us when we brought her in, if he could do surgery before we put her to sleep to see if there was something that he could fixed, something that he might have missed the first time. We agreed. I knew really in my heart that this was goodbye. We had spent time before we left home with her, telling her how much we loved her. I told her she had 3 brothers waiting for her at the Bridge and that tonight she'd be chasing balls with all of them. The last picture of her in my mind is of Dr. Jesske carrying her out of the exam room.

You know how things come into your life unexpectedly? That was Sophie. I had been somewhat working with a Dachshund rescue when we got a call from someone who had to give up her mother's dog. Steve and I agreed to go get her for the rescue, but told them we needed to find a home ASAP since we already had 6, and we didn't particularly want 7! They said they would and would we please go get her. We did and she came home with us that night.

I sent another email the next day, asking if they had found a home for her. I never heard back from them about a home for her. Steve wasn't too crazy about having 7 dogs, but she turned into a Daddy's girl pretty quick! It probably was a month before we decided we would "keep" her, although I think we knew it in our hearts long before that! She was just meant to be here. Meant to be part of our family.

Today after I came home from the vet I let the dogs out and counted to make sure all of them were back in the house... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... Oh yeah. We're not complete any more.

Sophie again

Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes for our Sophie. She's still at the vet. Saturday we were about thisclose to sending her to the Bridge, but the vets had a phone consultation and decided to try some new drugs and they seem to be working. She went from vomiting about every 2-3 minutes to only vomiting 3 times between last night and about 6 p.m. tonight. The fact that she still vomiting at all is a concern of course, but we're trying to do everything we can and give her as much of a chance as we can. She a tough little thing and fighting like crazy. The biopsy results came back Saturday and didn't show any cancer! That was good news! The inflammation is from a bacterial infection and we just can't figure out where she picked the bug up. She's not the garbage eater, that would be Ruger; and she's not a poop eater, that would be Ben (I know, gross and absolutely TMI), but those are the first 2 things they look at for a bacterial infection. I can't absolutely say she's never done either one of those things, but those just aren't her habits. I just want the poor little thing to get better! She's lost almost 2 pounds, and when you only weigh 10 to begin with, that's a lot of weight!

We tried to get her to eat tonight, but she wasn't having any of that stuff. She did drink some water, but vomited it up about 10 minutes later. Her poor little legs have got to be sore from having an IV for the past 7 days. The vet says she's a tough little girl, and she is, just praying she gets better soon!

As far as other stuff - as if there was other stuff....

We were in a winter storm watch last night and this morning, but they canceled it and we havn't had so much as a snowflake! Bummer! I was really looking forward to about 5" of snow, they said we'd have at least an inch, but so far nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I hope we have some for Christmas at least, it's so much more Christmas-y when there's snow. Although you'd never tell it was almost Christmas my looking at my house. No tree, no decorations up...

I have to go up to the hospital on Wednesday for our December meeting and Christmas party. The hospital is actually springing for lunch, beef tips, mashed potatoes, Ceasar salad... Sounds good. I'm not really in the mood for a party though. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Friday Steve has to go back to his doctor for another scope and possible biopsy - if there's new tumor growth. I bet there's nothing and he'll have a clean bill of health, but any prayers would be appreciated, just in case. He hasn't had any symptoms or anything, so I think he'll be fine.

Meg is having finals this week - I'm glad it's her and not me, but I'm praying she'll do good! Keep that scholarship money coming in! She has to take a test in order to student teach, so I think she'll have to be doing that after the first of the year. In January she might have the opportunity to teach at Iowa School for the Deaf for 3 weeks or so, keeping our fingers crossed that she gets that! She'd love it and I think it would be a great experience for her!

Matt has started his architecture classes - I think he'll really like them, it something that's interested him for a long time. Go Matt!

Any good thoughts or prayers you could send on behalf of our nephew, Mike, and his family would be appreciated. They just had a new baby girl the Friday after Thanksgiving (which is good - great!), but they got a letter last week telling them the house they've been renting for the past year has been foreclosed on and they have until January 2 to vacate the premises (which is bad). I hope they can find something nice, in their price range, bit enough for their little (!) Mike said the owner of the house hasn't made a payment since either June or July. Too bad Mike and Amy were paying the rent - I'm sure they could have used that $1,100 a month! Oh well, you juts have to roll with life gives you I guess. I'm just hoping it's not too hard to find a place. I have absolutely no idea what the housing market is like in Menphis.

I guess that's about it for now - my back is absolutely killing me, so I'm going to bed. Have a good one everybody!