Vacation Pictures

Indiana Dunes 2012--Memorial Day Weekend

Sadie was my heart and soul...

A week ago today Sadie lost her battle with Bone Cancer. Thursday night she started crying and was unable to get comfortable again. She would look deep into my eyes and as much as I wanted to deny it, she was ready. We called the vet and had a few minutes before we had to meet him. We sat on the floor with her as she gave kisses, sat on laps and got one last belly rub. When the time came we took her in and I stayed with her, petting her, playing with her ear and kissing her. I talked very little but she could feel everything I couldn’t say. I gave her one last kiss before I walked away.  When I came home I put all her things away, crying like I never have for any human.

 I will miss her sweet face and all of her expressions! I will miss the way her fur feels under my hand. I will miss the feel of her soft ear. I will miss the look in her eyes when I talk to her. I will miss the cute way she sleeps with her nose hid in her paws. I will miss her smile. I will miss everything.

We still went away for the weekend. It was a long car ride full of more long cries. I felt so sad, heartbroken, empty and lost. Duste never knows what to do with me when I am quiet. But I am quiet because it takes all my energy to use self talk to keep myself from crying. Sadness, pure sadness is hard for me to put to words. Anger is something I am much more comfortable with. After several hours on our vacation my grey cloud had lifted a little and I decided I must get a tattoo. I had never gotten a tattoo before; as I could not decide on something I would want on my body for the rest of my life. Duste and I had talked about getting one for each other but something always stopped me. (They are against the dress code at my work and I see no point in getting one somewhere no one would see it.) When my Chopper dog died, many years ago, I thought about getting one then but again talked myself out of it. This time I was going to do it—screw the rules no one else followed them why should I. After talking it over with Duste we decided the what/where and we got in the car and followed the GPS. Hours after talking about it I had my first tattoo—two dog prints on the inside of my left wrist; in memory of my furbabies Chopper and Sadie. Since getting the tattoo something unexpected happened, I no longer felt like crying every minute. I may not be able to have my babies with me forever but I would have this and that made me feel better. We had a good rest of vacation and neither of us wanted to come home. I loved the early morning walks on the beach!

Coming home was hard. The house seems so empty, quiet and lonely. Everywhere I look I see where she used to be. Getting used to this new normal is going to be hard. We do want another dog but we will wait. We are going to wait until after our last vacation this year before we even start our search. After lots of talks and research we have decided on the BullBoxer as our new breed. We just love pits but traveling can be more difficult with a pure pitty so we have decided to go with a mix again. I am exhausted just thinking about having a puppy again but it will be a new adventure and we will fall in love all over again.

We really want this one to be more dog friendly so we are really going to step it up in the socialization and we are going to start the training early. We learned it is best when the dog knows you are in charge. Maybe when my heads in a better place we will start the name game….

I am a mother by nature and not having something to take care of is really hard for me.

I did something I have never done after losing someone I love—I put up pictures. I wanted to see her sweet face again, at the places I look for her most. We also started looking through pictures; Sadie had one hell of a life for 12 yrs!

Like I explained it before, I love with walls, with my guard always up. There are very few I love without fear and my dog is one of them. That is why it hurt so badly.

Sadie~I will miss you more than words can say. Go run, play and show your brother you can out run him again! I will see you both again one day.  Mommy loves you both~

Putting feelings to words—

I am so overwhelmed. So why is it that people need more from me now? Why is that more things pile up when you are already under so much stress? Are the problems really as big as they seem or does it just look that way from down here? My chest feels tight and sometimes it is hard to breathe deep. I feel all tight, like a ball inside—unable to relax and breathe.

I worry about Sadie. I watch her every move, listening to her every noise. When she rest I watch her breathing and listen for any sounds. I am always listening; even when I am suppose to be sleeping. I question every decision I make for her. Am I doing enough for her, am I doing too much? When is it enough? I don’t want her in pain but I don’t want to give up on her too soon—but I am not sure how long I can make it. Bone Cancer is Bone Cancer; it eats away at her bones the holes will be getting bigger causing more pain. She is already taking the max on her pain pills so it’s only downhill from here.

So many questions—how long do we have, how fast is this moving?

I need a mental vacation my Duste says and that is exactly what I am going to do. She will be taking all calls for me—to be a blocker for all the un- needed stress. Maybe I will be able to catch my breath again, maybe I will be able to relax, and it helps when I see that Sadie is as well.

This is hard, this is one of the hardest paths I have ever taken—I just need to remember I am not alone, Dust is walking right next to me…..

A little stresssssssed

There are two things that really stress me out:

1.       The health of a loved family member and pets

2.       Money

 At the same time we found out our dog has bone cancer Duste’s dad was in the hospital. He is now released and will not follow doctor’s orders at all. He wants to argue about everything and his wife, Duste’s mother, does not want to take care of him. She wants and has always wanted everything to be about her. Duste is trying to get it through his thick head what he needs to do without beating on him. Ahhh!

Sadie seems stabilized, I suppose. Everything is the same, just different if that makes any sense. She is breathing strangely at night which has me worried getting up and down to check on her throughout the night. It is so hard with animals because they can’t talk and tell you what they are feeling, instead I am stuck watching for signs and noticing everything. Bone Cancer will kill a dog in one of two ways: one it will spread to the lungs making it hard for them to breathe or two it will cause so much pain because it is eating away at the bone that pain meds won’t work anymore. This is why I am watching her breathing so much. We also don’t know how fast it is spreading or progressing but we did have an x-ray done a wk ago and it wasn’t in her lungs. The vet did say once it gets in their lungs you have less than a month.  I am having a really hard time breathing myself. This is just too much.

Oh but then the money stress comes in. We are on one income right now and we were making it fine—until all this. It was $400 to take Sadie to the vet, then another $60 to take her to the holistic vet. Her pain meds are around $100 for two weeks and her new supplements are $200 for a month. My sister needs me to cover the first week of daycare, which she will pay back, that is $244 this week and construction continues on the house which is always pulling out of the savings. $1,000 here $1,000 there. Did I mention I am having a hard time breathing…

 I need for things to take a positive turn for us. It seems every time things start looking like they are going in the right direction something terrible happens. Oh let me count the ways: my grandma died, the chicken got sick, a chicken died, the duck has scoliosis, Sadie has bone cancer, Jim has some unknown blood disease and Duste hasn’t gotten that call to come back to work. Nope grouping them together does not make me feel better.

I try to stay positive—the factory our future depends on says they will call soon. They say they want her back. They said 2012 was the year; we are almost 6months in and no call. She needs this job, we need this job.  It is the only factory that offers household insurance, if we ever want a family then they have to call. When she goes back to work it will really help with the financial stress but of course that would open up more problems for us—like who will be home to watch the dog and give her the meds she needs. I will be worried sick if Sadie has to stay home for 8hrs alone wondering if she is still doing ok. Sure 90 days doesn’t seem that long unless you have a dog with bone cancer—hell I can’t even think about this weekend. I really need to breathe…

Then there is my job—I have to come here and deal with everyone and all their problems. The people I work with are so needy; listen to me whine about things that aren’t that important but I am going to make it a big deal. I am going to explode—into tears most likely. I want to be left alone. Just let me deal with my shit and you deal with your own. We are both adults here, I am sure if you think about it you can figure out what you do with the form and where it goes. UGH!

I want to go home and spend the day with my dog. I don’t care about the people at work or the problems. They aren’t the ones that matter to me. I DON’T CARE!!!

Be Calm and Carry On........

Monday was a really bad night for Sadie. She cried all night and would only rest if I held her. This was really unlike her as she is a very independent girl. Her breathing was fast and short and I knew things weren’t right. That night we both got maybe 2 hrs of sleep. I begged a new vet to see us the next morning as I could not put her through a moment more of pain. A very nice vet took us and we prepared ourselves. After an x-ray the diagnosis was in—it was what I feared a month before—Bone Cancer. I was in shock, I knew what that meant, and I have prepared myself for this a month ago. I stood there frozen; wrapping my brain around what he was saying…..I started making phone calls to the family once I could get myself to say the words.

The vet thinks we have under a year left. He put her on new pain meds and as long as she is comfortable and happy we will do all we can. She has had a good past couple of days, sleeping through the night and enjoying the warm sun and cool grass. We will keep her with us as long as she wants to be here. She is seeing a Holistic Vet tomorrow that will help us with this journey and keep her quality of life as good for as long as we can.

I am determined to give her the best days ahead I can. We are planning a lot more family things at our home because she isn’t just loved by us she is loved by our family. We are going to spend as much time as we can with her; stopping more often to pet her, especially when we leave and come home—because you never know when that last time will be. What day will be her last good day and how did she spend that day—that is what I keep thinking. Unfortunately I have to work and leaving in the morning is harder than normal now. I do not want her last day here to be a day I was away for most of it. 12yrs isn’t long enough. 12yrs is too young.  

I just cannot imagine what it is going to be like coming home without her being there. She is a good girl and she is going to be hard to live without. She is going to be so missed and missed by many. She has a brother waiting for her on the other side, along with a few of her friends. She will be happy—able to run and dig holes again. I hope for her sake there is some snow for her to run in! 

So, I am taking lots of deep breaths and trying to focus on the day and not the future. Staying in the moment is something I have never been good at….

Playhouse Reveal



BEFORE

Here it is~after weeks of hard work by my Duste! She is so amazing and awesome to work so hard to make me happy!




AFTER

Graduation and a Birthday!

My sister, Amanda, graduated from College!! Can you believe it—College!! I am so proud of her! She is amazing! She didn’t let anything stand in her way; she graduated and did so with very good grades! She got an award for graduating with a 3.5-3.75 GPA!! She did all this being a young mother and wife. She never let that be something that held her back, instead she used it as motivation. We were not raised as children who would go to college; the importance of education was not really stressed to us. Statics show that we would grow up as young mothers with addiction issues who lived on government assistance. Instead we are College graduates who will own homes, pay taxes and be useful citizens. Our future is just as bright as everyone elses because we fought for it! We wouldn’t accept what life gave us and fought for something better! I am so overjoyed that my sister chose to follow me in my path to rise above our raisings! The way you are raised or the things that happened in your childhood are not excuses for your laziness. Anyone can have a wonderful future—some just have to work harder than others to get it!




Ok—stepping off my soap box now—

This past week was also my birthday and what does a thrifty girl like to do on her birthday you ask—go to second hand clothing stores in the big city when they have their sale of course! I have been wondering how I would look in skirts recently—pinning some outfits on pinterest is always the first step right? Since I love dresses so much I thought why not a skirt with a cute shirt and a cardigan. So, just like I did when I first got into Tea Dresses, I bought some at the second hand clothing store! This time I also ventured out of my usual color scheme and went with some yellows and red—gasp! A long time ago, when I was little, someone said blondes should not wear yellow or red so I have always stayed away from these colors. But how I do love mustard yellow—my kitchen is this color and lots of accents in my home are this color. So, I decided I was going to wear it! I got two yellow shirts—one in light yellow and one in mustard to go with a few skirts. I also bought a red and white tea dress! So Cute! I am so in love with flowing skirts now! I also got a new camera, after fighting with it at my sisters graduation and pictures not turning out as good as they should, I decided I need one. So, Duste bought me one—at the pawn store of course! After I did some research on what the prices are new we decided to turn others misfortune into our good fortune. I got a new to me PINK Kodak Camera!  It takes awesome pictures and has a faster shutter speed so we can keep up with Keaton! I also got a massage—it had been 5 months since my last one and OMG was it good!! It felt so good to leave there with absolutely no pain or tightness, it had been too long!  I have had a great 29^th birthday!

UPDATE~Today we received very good news on Duste’s job! It is looking like I will be out of work by the end of this year!! 2013 is going to be awesome—that is if the world doesn’t end on 12/20/12!! Ha!

Have a Wonderful May!!

Duste and I