Reunited--And It Feels So Good!

The weekend was once again 'full'. My mother-in-law is stable and was moved out of ICU over the weekend. At this point they aren't exactly sure she had an actual heart attack and are doing more tests. Along with her initial "episode", she is having quite a bit more edema and her congestive heart failure that she's battled for years is really being an issue right now. They are guarded, but, for today, she is stable and they are watching her. The feeling is nothing "immediate" will happen, but clearly, in general her health continues to decline and they really don't know how much more of these kinds of episodes she'll be able to endure.

We had planned on going down to see her this weekend, but with all the wild weather and amount of snow in the Cascades over the past weekend, we thought it better wisdom to wait until next weekend to make the trip over to the coast. We are in touch daily, getting regular updates.

As you have read in recent posts, this seems to be a season of "unexpected" events, and this weekend didn't disappoint. (I'm still looking--and hoping--for that boring, dull weekend...but it still remains illusive and out of grasp.)

When we needed to move suddenly, 3 weeks ago, into our apartment complex, we were not able to bring our big yellow lab, "Samson" with us. Our two cats and other smaller dog, "Tessa", were allowed to move in with us in the apartment, but management deemed "Sam" to be a bit too large--which we knew would most likely be the case. (At nearly 100 lbs, he certainly qualifies as "large".) Our friends, who have 4 dogs, 1 of which is Sam's brother, offered to care for him until we move into our new home. We took them up on their generous offer.

Even though we knew Samson would be in a good living situation, parting was really difficult as we felt we were leaving a part of our family behind. I'll admit it, I cried. In fact, I couldn't even say good-bye to him because it was too hard. Perhaps this seems a bit extreme to have emotions like this for a dog...but with all the changes, losses, transitions lately, this was just one more "thing" that was drilling a hole in my heart.

Sunday morning we got a call from our friends saying that their 4 dogs and our Sam had been fighting and things were getting increasingly worse, and that, if anything, they were worried about Sam's safety with the other dogs (they had ganged up on him at one point I guess). Also, they had noted that since he had been at their house, he seemed sad and even withdrawn a bit.

Not knowing what else to do, my husband and I went and talked to the apartment manager and told her our situation. She gave us the okay to bring Sam home and said it was okay to have him stay with us since she knew we were short-timers. We offered to pay an additional deposit or whatever, but the office gal told us not to worry about it! What a miracle! We sure didn't see that one coming!

So, once again, we are a full household, complete with our two cats, and our two dogs--in a very small space. Everyone seems to be adjusting well, complete with our cats walking all over Sam and cuddling up to him like they used to. Sam seems happier and content too, which does my heart good. I'm loving having those big brown eyes looking back at me once again!