Tuesday, January 6, 2009

My favorite Christmas gift this year...





To those of you who aren't animal lovers, you might want to skip reading this post. And, you might just want to reconsider loving an animal. There is nothing quite like it and you'll never feel such unconditional love, except from Jesus, of course. As most of you know, the first baby that entered my life was our beagle, Maggie. She was it for me and I spoiled her rotten! After K1 came along, things changed and then K2 and K3 came and poor Maggie was just put on the back burner. She's still very well taken care of, but doesn't get the lovin' that she use to.

The Monday before Christmas, while visiting my parents, Maggie started urinating blood. I'm not talking blood in her urine...I mean straight blood and lots of it. We took her to a local vet, who performed all kinds of tests and ended up shaving her stomach and doing an ultrasound. He pulled us back into a dark, cold room and told us he thought she had bladder cancer and he could refer us to a specialist in Dallas who could perform surgery for about $2000. Obviously, since she is already 11 years old and her life expectancy is only 10-12 years, that was not an option. It looked like our only alternative was to put her to sleep. Mind you, this is 2 days before Christmas! Not only would I have been a mess, but the girls would have been devastated! We paid a fee to have the sonogram pictures sent off to a specialist for a second opinion and the vet held Maggie for the afternoon.

I left there feeling completely hopeless and heartbroken. I thought with the busyness of the girls, that when this day came, I'd be o.k. with it. I was obviously mistaken! The thought of putting her to sleep was more than I could handle. I was a mess! Poor Bryan was trying to figure out what he was going to do with a bunch of grieving girls. Not to mention, we were at my parents' house, and my mom loves Maggie almost as much as I do!

The vet called us at about 3:30 and said, "I think I have good news...you can come and pick Maggie up!" I had my shoes on in 2.2 seconds and was ready to go. When we got there, he told us that she had a hematoma in her bladder and gave us 3 strong medications to give her to clear it up. Miraculously, she was better by the next day and has been fine ever since! To think, we were so close to putting her to sleep and now she is completely fine...scary! Those of you who aren't animal lovers will probably not be able to relate and are really missing out on one of God's greatest gifts, but picking Maggie up from the vet that day was by far my favorite Christmas gift this year!

1 comment:

Kristen, pajama mama said...

ohmygoodness! I'm so sorry you had to even go through that scare! So glad Maggie's doing better. That's actually why we don't have a pet...I don't know how I would handle it should something happen to them...maybe someday I'll be brave enough.
Happy New Year,
k.