Scout

Our beloved pet Scout passed away on September 23rd, 2008. Over the fourth of July weekend Scout had some breathing problems and orientation problems so I ended up taking him to an emergency vet (on the evening of the 4th). The vet took one look at him and felt his abdomen and told me that he believed that Scout had a tumor in his belly. He gave me three options. 1-I could take him home and let nature take it's course and in a few days he would probably be gone. 2-I could have the vet do surgery, take the tumor out and see if it is benign or malignant. The operation would buy him time at the least. 3- I could just have the vet put him down right then. Of course my whole family was up on a mountain camping and I had to make the decision alone. So I decided to have him operate on Scout. Scout stayed the night and by the next morning he was able to come home. Two weeks later we found out that the tumor was malignant and he had cancer of the liver. They told me at that time that Scout would live about a month, maybe two if we were lucky. Our Scout was 9 years old. He was such a fun part of our family and we all miss him. Sadie, our other dog, misses him terribly. She has never known life without him. We felt extremely lucky that we had an extra 2 1/2 months with him. That last week of his life he started acting lethargic again and had no interest in eating or playing. He was breathing funny again so we decided it was time to let him go. That was a really tough day.

Claudean

Poor Adam!

First of all I'm sorry that it has taken me forever to post again on here. I'm going to try to be better at it.


In July we were all excited because we would be going to my family's house in California. We were busy getting packed and talking about all the fun that we would be having there. We had our plan trip set for August 4th. I would be flying out with the kids and then Kary would come later.


Adam was so social this summer! He was always playing with someone and going to friends houses or they were coming to mine. It was fun to see him open up so much. When we lived in Thailand he didn't ever want to leave the house!


On August 2nd Adam had a friend over and they were playing down in our unfinished basement. All of a sudden I heard screams of pain! I ran downstairs and found Adam laying on the floor next to the fooseball table and I couldn't get him to settle down. So I helped him upstairs and laid him on the couch. Come to find out he had been on top of the fooseball table trying to walk in between the bars. He had lost his balance and fallen off. His leg got stuck in between the bars...but then he fell to the floor. Now understand it was a friday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Kary had gone to youth conference the day before with Gavin and Sean. I took a look at Adam's legs and noticed that his right leg looked a little different than the other one. So I made a quick decision to take him to IHC instacare before they closed. I knew that if I waited too long than I would have to take him to the emergency room if he needed medical help. Five minutes away and $35.00 vs. 30 minutes away and $85.00. I decided to drive the 5 minutes and have them take a look at his leg. Well, they x-rayed his leg and it was definately broken. They put a splint on his leg and told me that we had to wait until monday to cast it because they wait for the swelling to go down. I started to panic....our flight was on monday! How were we going to get to California if we couldn't make the flight! They scheduled our appt. with the orthopedic surgeon for 8:00 a.m on Monday morning. It turned out that our flight was at 5:00 pm that evening! Thank goodness it all still worked out.
Here he is with his first cast! He wanted bright red and he had to wear shorts all the time. It was a good thing it was still summer and the weather cooperated with his wardrobe needs!
We borrowed a wheelchair from Kary's parents and that saved our life! We made it back from the orthopedic surgeon just in time to get ready for our trip to California. This would add an extra element of fun to our trip!