It seems to be extremely slow these days on the boards. Is everyone okay?

I'm here. I agree, the boards have been slow lately. But I have a reason for not being as active as in the past.

This past Saturday, we lost our 13-year-old Golden Lab mix. Sam had been a wonderful, faithful, loving companion ever since our younger son (the borderline legal one) brought him to our house with a tale of finding him on the road exhausted and worn. "Just keep him for me until I get a place of my own!" said the shady young man.

That didn't happen until last year, and the young children in his ready-made family weren't a good fit with a patient but no longer young 100-pound retriever. So my wife and I gladly kept him, and we loved him, and he loved us back.

The past few weeks, though, he's had trouble moving around, been lethargic, had trouble breathing - panting nearly all the time - and the vet who looked at him said he seemed to have an infection somewhere. A single round of antibiotics didn't help, so she put him on steroids and another antibiotic. He didn't respond. On Saturday morning he refused to eat, which was new, and he couldn't get up to go to the back door to go outside. He lay in the foyer where it was cool and cried. When my wife got home from work, we and the borderline legal son (who has cleaned up his act in the past year or so) loaded him into our SUV and took him to an animal hospital.

They examined him, determined that he seemed to have a mass growing in his abdomen - the second one in a year (first one surgically removed along with his spleen) - and may have had lung cancer indicated by lung "infiltrates" the ultrasound and a previous X-ray revealed. The vet told us that our options were either to treat him aggressively with surgery and chemo, or to let him go. My wife and I tearfully decided that letting our boy go was the best option. We didn't want to lose him, but he was in pain and couldn't walk and we didn't want him to suffer more.

So they gently and gracefully helped him leave us. And I'm shedding tears again while typing this.

Our other dog, a 5-year old 45-pound long-legged Pit Bull named Coco spent some time last night moving around the house as if she were looking for Sam. I'm sure she'll realize he's not coming back soon and will miss him for a while. I think I'll never forget him.

Thank you for letting me vent a bit.

Terry, I'm so, SO sorry for your loss. Losing a family member is never easy, regardless of if they are human or furry. (I say this with my orange tabby purring right behind my head - I've told him he's never allowed to leave us.) Wishing you lots of healing in the coming days.

I'm around. I've picked World of Warcraft back up in the last couple of months, so some nights all my free time is devoted to defending Azeroth from the terrors of the Alliance. (For the Horde! Lok'tar Ogar!)

I do have (as Val knows) an epic to soonishly share with you all. But the muse has been a little sleepy since finishing that one. I keep poking her with a sharp stick. She keeps just giving me the stink-eye in return though.

Also:



(Yes, I stole your image, Val.)

Terry, I'm so sorry for your loss. Sam sounds like he was a great dog, and I'm glad for the years you got to spend with him.

I'm around, but (as some of you know) I lost my job a bit abruptly and it threw me into a bit of an emotional tailspin. I'm still reading, and commenting when I can find the energy, but creative output is currently on hold.



(I'm stealing Val's image too)

Val created this image but is stealing E and Vicki's link :P

Terry, I'm so very sorry to hear about the passing of your dear friend Sam. Pets have such an important place in our hearts and losing them is like losing a family member. Please let us know if there's anything we can do.


Vicki / E,

Perhaps we need something fun on here to liven things up? Shall I resurrect Guess the Quote again? Something quick and easy to have fun with?

Hello Terry,

I'm adding my condolences to the chorus. Dogs really do become members of the family.

And speaking of members of the family, my son has an IEP meeting tomorrow and, depending on how it goes, he may be moving home in a couple of weeks. I've been busy preparing our home for him, just in case. (For anyone who wishes to understand what is going on with me, know that my story Hitting Close to Home, while fiction, is more autobiographical than I would like.)

Joy,
Lynn

p.s., Endelda, I hope you find a new job that proves much nicer than the old one.

Terry, I am very sorry to read about your loss and venting is perfectly fine. That’s what we are here for. Our yellow lab Dax is getting older and the very uncomfortable reality of knowing that she will be gone soon is before us all the time. Sam sounds like the kind of dog to take long walks with and probably sat near you while composing many of your stories. Such a great companion will be sorely missed.


I am here. The new job is not what I expected, it is supposed to be part-time, but is more like full-time without the benefits. I am actively looking for something else and that hunt is sucking up all of my free time. I still have a few stories in the hopper which I want to share. Stay tuned, I will be back!

Terry, I very much relate to your grief as I lost a dog on Wednesday. We'd only just taken in Jasper, a rescued chihuahua, in February. He was 8 years old and helped himself to an unreasonably large portion of something dogs shouldn't eat in large portions. After a rough night, he seemed like he was going to be fine, but wasn't with us anymore when I got home from school. We also have another dog, and a cat, who both now walk around the house looking for Jasper, or at least that how it seems. He was a good little dog and I miss him very much.

School has kept me away since August. I am teaching a new class this year. In addition, I have 4 sections of chemistry totaling 98 students and every time I give a quiz or test or we do a lab, I spend the next few days grading. And for some reason, they chose this year to discontinue the teacher aide program in which students could get credit for helping me in whatever way I needed. Alas. I have spent what little free time I've had over the past three months doing some reading (though I'm still very behind) and going through edits on my story after it was submitted for upload to the archive. I had no idea how long that would take. I'm nearly done now and expect to send it back to the editor in the next day or so. I will be happy to have that project completed in time for November, when I will tackle 50,000 words (at least) on the sequel (which I'm even more excited about after working on the original the last few days. I worked on it in July, but the muse was more interested in something else - a totally unrelated story that also sits partially finished).

The way the school year goes, I'll get into a groove here in a few weeks, just in time for November and once the semester is over, I should have significantly more time since second semester is always a breeze.