Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Busy & Bella

Very little time to sit and blog lately - work is picking up (my regular gardening customers - getting ready for annual & container planting), helping a local garden center get ready for their spring open house this coming Saturday (all volunteer time, but hopefully I`ll see the payoffs by working there in their new tropical plant greenhouse at the open house - it looks great!), taxes (yes, I procrastinated this year), travel to my sister`s near Indy for Easter weekend, and... Bella.

I mention Bella last for a reason - on Friday, April 6, Laurie and I made a very difficult decision. After a lot of discussion and tears, we decided to have Bella put down. We knew the heartworm treatment would be difficult on her, and keeping her inactive for 6-8 weeks would be VERY difficult on her and on us. But, then with the added hookworm detected earlier that week - what were we to do?

After my parents had taken the kids on over to my sisters, Laurie and I sat down one last time to talk and weighed the options. We called the vet and made an appointment.

We took the time to take Bella on one last walk together - a couple of kids saw us and commented on how cute Bella was - I think we both almost burst into tears. It was such a long drive to the vet... When we arrived they took us straight into an exam room - it was suppose to be a short wait, but we sat there for about 30-minutes. When the Dr came in, she sat on the floor with Bella while we talked. She asked us a few questions, discussed her health and her future, talked thru the process - she was very supportive of our decision. After a few minutes she took Bella to another room - we cried - no, we sobbed. She returned after a short time with Bella wrapped in a blanket - she looked so peaceful, as if she were just sleeping. We said our final goodbyes.

We drove on over to my sisters - we waited to tell the kids until the next day - we didn`t go into detail, we just told them that we took Bella to the vets and while we were there she died. They had a hard time, but they did well. It was so hard to tell them... Andrew still thanks God for Bella every night during prayers, "even though she`s already dead" he says (it`s so cute!).

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