Monday, December 27, 2010

Sometimes life is just the worst.

On Friday I found a pinkish puddle on our kitchen tile. I decided it was due to the red in Max's dog food. A few hours later I found a dark red puddle, and I called the vet. We sat and watched while Max was examined, while he cried when they took his temperature, and while they gave us his first dose of antibiotics to administer at home. A few hours later Max threw up. Then he stopped eating and drinking. And then he continually tried to urinate, crouching down and flexing every muscle in his body, and never succeeding. We called Urgent Care. They said it was normal. All night he tossed and turned while we hald him in our bed. Christmas day he lay listless on the carpet. We drove 90 miles an hour from Centerville to Orem and rushed into Urgent care. They put him on an IV and more antibiotics. We called that night to check on him. They said his white blood cell count was really high, which meant an infection, and that he was on the right medicine to take care of it and he was going to be ok. We were so relieved. And after church yesterday we couldn't wait to go visit Max. We expected to see our puppy sitting up and eating and nipping at fingers. I brought his stuffed raccoon so he would have something to play with. When we arrived at the clinic the nurse told us to have a seat and the doctor would be right in to talk with us. Ten minutes later a frazzled woman asked exactly what had happened to our dog. She left the room, then returned in another ten minutes with our puppy. When we said his name he cracked an ete open, then closed it again out of exhaustion. Frazzled doctor then explained that Max was leaking fluid, that they couldn't get a cathater in, that he probably has a shunt, and that if something wasn't done immediately our puppy was going to die. So we rushed to Salt Lake, where a woman who has to be the greatest dog doctor in the entire world took really great care of Max. She gave him an ultra sound, she wrapped him in a blanket, and she brought him into the room where we waited to hear her diagnosis. And then it broke our hearts when she confirmed everything we had heard an hour before. That Max had three separate and serious issues. A shunt in the liver, a tear in the urethra and urinate stones in the bladder. Each needed to be taken care of with separate surgery. And when we asked her the likelihood of Max ever being a happy puppy again, she told us what I think we really needed to hear. That God made puppies to have happy little lives. And that puppies only know the present. And that all Max would know for a long time is pain. And that if it were her puppy, she would have a really hard time moving forward with surgery. When we asked her what the humane thing to do would be, she said it would probably be to say good bye. And so we sat in a room with our perfect puppy lying on my lap, and every once in a while he would wake from his nap and stare at me with his ears perked up and wonder why I was sobbing. But then he would quickly fall back asleep and Max was gone again. We knew we would probably never have the Max we loved so dearly back. And so we cried and cried and told him how much we love him and said our good byes and then Stephen held him as they administered the euthenazia and our little sweet puppy was gone.
And now we're back in our apartment with a basketfull of puppy toys and some towels with little bite marks and remnants of puppy kibble on the floor. It's a little too much to handle and we're not really sure what to do with ourselves. And everytime I close my eyes I see his little face and hear his tiny bark and remember him crawling into my lap for an afternoon nap.

Friday, December 24, 2010

But seriously

Merry Christmas

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Cheer

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

very soon it will be Christmas Day

I hope that I love my future children as much as I love my puppy Max. it's going to be tough.

I finally figured out Home on the Range. It's been so confusing to me since I first heard it on PeeWee's playhouse oh so long ago. I could never understand these two lines:
"Where seldom is heard,
a discouraging word."
See, I thought it meant that they hear the word seldom, and it's discouraging. Which seemed weird to include in a song that is so decidedly pro home on the range. But don't worry, 19 years later, I've finally figured it out. Thanks, college.

Friday, December 17, 2010

yeah yeah

This is happening:
We are looking for name suggestions.

Also, new review.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Sometimes I get stomach aches and I feel like that guy on Alien. But it's not a creepy worm creature that's giving me fits. It's one too many Diet Dr. Peppers.

Sometimes the Morley family takes a successful picture. It's pretty rare, like, blue moons get excited about it.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Sleeping when you're tired is like eating chocolate when you're on a diet. You know that it's too good to last. All day I've been craving sleep and chocolate. It's been quite the week, what with 17 hour work days and eating every meal at my desk and sobbing uncontrollably at a family dinner and nearly crashing into a parking lot fence at 5 am and hearing the actual beginning of Morning Edition on NPR and teaching a horrible lesson at church and neglecting laundry, exercise, and proper hygiene and in the end I would just really like a nap and some cadburry eggs. Wrong season.