The JohnEklund.tour - coming soon to an area near you*

We had a huge scare last week. We thought we were going to lose our dog. It started out on a Thursday, when Ani kept inexplicably vomiting throughout the course of the day. Finally, after she vomited after her evening walk we decided to take her to the Emergency Animal Hospital. We loaded her up in the car and headed to Huntersville and took her in. The doctor diagnosed her with pancreatitis, a condition miniature schnauzers are prone to we were told. Basically the enzymes in the pancreas that help with digestion of food start acting prematurely and start eating the pancreas. Yep, her pancreas was eating itself. They were going to have to keep her overnight.

"Whatever," we said, "anything to make her feel better." So we got home around 1:30 AM and proceeded to cry ourselves to sleep, the first time we've had to willingly let the dog stay with someone besides family. After a long night we called the next morning and she was still vomiting. They had put a little doggy I.V. in her paw and took her off food. Only the I.V. until she got better. They also put her on painkillers because her belly was in a lot of pain. We visited her and our hearts slowly broke. She was non-responsive an non-affectionate, it almost seemed like a different dog. They told us they'd have to keep her another night.

Saturday morning we called and they said she was doing well and were going to try to feed her to see how she reacted. They did and she threw it up, so we were back to square one: no food and a doggy I.V. in her paw. We visited her Saturday night and I laid on the floor with her and prayed. When I got home we talked about it and came to the conclusion that although Ani always tries to sleep in between us and keeps us up when she does, we'd give anything to have that little black dog right in between us right now. Another long night.

Sunday we called and they said she was doing well and were taking her off the painkillers. They wanted us to come visit and try to feed her. When we got there she was a new dog, jumping on us, almost knocking us over with glee. This was our dog. She ate and we walked her and went home to wait. We prayed that our dog would keep her food down. She did and we went to pick her up around 9:00 Sunday night and she slept right in between us with her head on our pillow and we loved every second of it. Our dog was home where she belonged and we found out exactly how much she means to us. Just like the parent-child relationship, we couldn't bear the thought of losing our Ani. I held her tight and thought about how scared I was that I was going to lose her, this dog that has gotten me through so much turbulence in my life. Our dog was definitely home.

It took a few days to get back to her old form, but now she's just the same as we she was - playful and loving and full of life. The way it should be.

What can you say about the messed up weather where you live when yesterday it was 85 degrees and about as spring time as it could be and today we got to watch it snow for a bit. That's messed up. That's spring time in Charlotte!

* Map courtesy of Bryan Boyer - all good things come from Bryan Boyer.