GREAT!!!

Dropping in for a quick update. As of now I am cancer free! My last checkup showed everything was normal in my blood. I have another scan in March to see if it comes back. They said if it were to come back it usually happens within a year or two from treatment. But so far I'm feeling fine and staying optimistic. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers everyone!

Sorry to hear, Chip. I do know a fair number of people who have beaten this, and I hope that you're one of them, and that your pocketbook does likewise!

So sorry to hear that Lester (Chip). I wish you a speedy recovery.

REALLY wish I could do more than offer thoughts & prayers, but that's all I got & am sending plenty. Really hoping/praying the chemo works, & if not, that one of the new treatments will. Hang in there -- I know the treatments & their effects are anything but pleasant.

Well everyone I have some unfortunate news to share with you all. I'm currently undergoing chemotherapy to treat my lymphoma which is a cancer in my lymph nodes. I was diagnosed a fews months ago and am currently halfway through my treatment. If you want to read my full story I have it all wrote up on my gofundme page. I didn't want to copy and paste a novel into here lol.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/financial-assistance-needed-for-cancer-treatment

Hi Chip, sorry to hear of your Grandmothers passing, I'm sure everyone here can empathise with how you are feeling right now. I lived with my paternal grandmother for most of my childhood so was devastated when she passed away, the same day as John Lennon was shot back in Dec 1980. 36 years on and I still get very upset when I think of her.

As John has said, it's good to see such threads brought back to the front page.

p.s. hope alls well with you chip (and everyone else)

I am glad this thread returned. Been reading the old posts. My prayers go to all. I like it when' yu all' keep everyone updated on things. Happy to see more than one post. I recently had my "Reset button pressed'. By that I mean a scare so that yu realize what and who is truly important in life. The car crash ended up OK. Here's to hoping your scares are not too terrible. HAVE GREAT HOLIDAYS...

Well I wanted to share with everyone here that my grandmom passed away on December 22nd. It was a rough last year or so but I know she is finally at peace now and no longer in pain. Rest in peace gran!
Link to my grandmom's obituary

Sorry for the loss of Benny, Nola. Losing pets is a terrible thing. Just know they are in a better place now.

The reason I'm posting is for my grandmom again. She took another bad fall on December 18th and broke her hip. She underwent surgery to repair the hip and is now in therapy. I've been visiting her when I can and took all her presents out on Christmas to make it not so bad. She's healing well and they think she'll be able to come home next week...although she needs a walker to get around now.

Nola, I'm so sorry to hear about Benny. I hadn't noticed that this thread had come back up so I didn't know about him till now. Though he's gone and you miss him, be comforted in knowing that you gave him a good home where he was loved and cared for. Now he's out of pain and is at peace. And, yes, another will come to fill the empty spot in your heart.
I'm praying for God's comfort for you and your family.
Hugs - BK

Thank you all for your good wishes and hugs, it is really appreciated. Each time I go through this I swear we aren't ever going to have another animal, but yet we do! Our home wouldn't be a home without all our animals around. It is so hard going through this though. We buried Ben today in the pouring rain, suited our feelings perfectly. At least the ground was easy to dig after all the rain we have had, a couple of months ago we wouldn't be able to get the spade through the dirt.

Copmom, thank you for the 'Rainbow Bridge', echoes my feelings about the other side perfectly. What a great poem that is.

I too am very very sorry to hear about you beloved pup, Nola!
I know what you must be going through...
We had a kitty who lived 20 years so we were blessed but the empty heart when
she passed was so hard to endure
Take care (( hugs))

Hi Nola, I'm so sorry about Benny; I totally missed your post as I was very preoccupied with some worries of my own and have not been a frequent caller in the forums over the last several weeks. I'll Email you soon and update you on everything. Been ages since I last Emailed you, for which I'm sorry.

May God comfort you & your family - and give you all strength- during your time of grief on the tragic loss of your precious German Shepherd, Benny - and may Benny find happiness and peace in God's loving care.

Inas

Nola.. thanks for the sad update. Now he's in a better place and will suffer no more. Don't know if you ever saw this before, but we took comfort in a poem called Rainbow Bridge.
http://www.petloss.com/rainbowbridge.htm
{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}} ~ Lauri

Our Benny died tonight. He waited until my daughter got home and patted him, then he just lay down, sighed and died. We are devastated as you would expect. He had got a whole lot better from the last time I wrote, but suddenly started going downhill a couple of days ago. Thank you to those who prayed, especially copmom for your words of encouragement and love. I really appreciate it.

Oh Nola.. I hate hearing what your poor Benny is going through, as well as the rest of you. It's so disheartening when one of our 'babies' has something wrong, and they can't even tell us what they are going through. My prayers are with him.. I'm afraid this is all in God's hands now, and hopefully he's not hurting or suffering. We've been down that road many times over the years, and they really ARE a big part of our family!!
{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}} ~ Lauri

Hi everyone, Could you please pray for our Benny? He is an 8 year old German Shepherd, a big, gentle bear, that we love very, very much, and he is really sick at the moment. He has had problems since the day he was born, with elbows that have swelled up and in the early years eventually burst, which caused him instant relief. However, the last few years they haven't been bursting but cause him a lot of pain and he is now on permanent painkillers, taken every day (which won't help his longevity). His 'elbow' problem has done the rounds of the vets in NZ and he is the only known animal to have this problem here and they have never got to the bottom of it, despite it costing my daughter thousands of dollars in operations and tests. Now his breathing has got really, really loud and he is panting all the time. He has lost 2kg in about a week, although we are now cooking chicken meals for him as we found that it is the only thing he will eat and he will eat plenty of it, but for a couple of days before that he ate nothing. He wasn't drinking but after his vet visit and an injection he has started drinking again. He doesn't seem to be in any pain, but he looks so miserable and follows us around all the time. (I'm terrified he is saying goodbye to us.) He is being treated with antibiotics and if they don't work, he will have to have blood work and xrays to find the cause. He loves to be stroked so we are spending a lot of our day doing that and just being with him, my daughter has even taken time off work to be with him. We are worried sick that this is the end but we know that if it is he has had the best life we could give an animal. He has 2 doggie brothers and 5 cat brothers and sisters and he is loved by us all. Though we shouldn't have a favourite, he really is, after all the medical challenges he has faced in his short life. Even his vet is really worried about him, no matter what he did to Ben over the years, he was licked every time Ben saw him, including yesterday. I can't bear to lose a best friend that sleeps on my bed with me every night, although it is looking likely. I know that I mentioned we had older dogs when responding to Buckleysmom, but I didn't expect it to happen this early.

Copmom.....yes, Texas sure does have heat, which means I'll spend a lot of time indoors with the AC on (kinda like here where I stay indoors all winter with the heat on). As for the storms, yes they have those too and I've already told DH that the first time a tornado comes our way I am heading east. Our friends have been there since 2007 and still haven't seen one so we'll see what happens......

Hotdoge3.....Amen!

things happening all over the world, not look so good end of last year & this year Pray and hope it can only get better

But doesn't Texas have conditions to deal with, like heat, storms, etc.??

Yes it is so sad to hear what those people are going through. You're right Copmom, there are so many things happening all over the world, every time you turn around it's some disaster or another....and they make our snow and ice problems look like child's play. Hubby still wants to move to Texas but more and more I dread it.

Congrats to Buckley! Actually I guess we're not the only crazies.. we have a fenced front yard so we let Scooter out there, and then patiently watch to be sure he's done his 'business'! Then we know he's OK for that day! Just like people.. gotta keep things flowing from one end to the other or we get all icky!

As for quakes, we were in the one in So. Calif. back in 1971 when the kids were little, I'll never forget it. With all the aftershocks, we wondered if they'd ever end. No power, no phones, no communication to know what was going on! It was scary! But guess what? No matter where you live, there's always some kind of act of nature to be concerned about. Up here in the middle of the mountains, we were hit by hurricanes Frances and Ivan a few years ago.. if it's not one thing, it's another!

Hi Copmom and Buckleysmom, No, I'm up the other end of NZ, thank goodness. We are all glued to the tv here with practically 24 hour coverage of the search and rescue and the sights of all the collapsed buildings. It is unbelievable, especially as this is the second really big quake. My daughter and I were in Christchurch in November and we experienced a big aftershock from the September quake then and nothing would have made us stay there after that, and that was tiny compared to yesterday's. Those poor people, a lot of them were still in the process of having their houses repaired after the September quake and now in a lot of cases they have no home at all. With the September quake being in the early morning hours, not one life was lost, unfortunately with this one being in the lunch time there are many people that are under the rubble from buildings fallen onto the pavements or buildings that have pancaked. I don't know what you have heard, but two buses full of people were totally squashed by the rubble fallen from buildings and this is where the main confirmed dead came from. The last time I watched tv, 77 were confirmed dead but 300 are still 'missing', where relatives have reported that family members haven't returned home. There are 'refugee camps' where some of these relatives will be, so we all hope that the death toll will be a lot less as more people get in touch with relatives.

It is a terrible, terrible time and our hearts go out to the Christchurch people. Apparently this quake could be because of the last quake, so I would imagine that quite a few people will leave Christchurch now. I can't say I'd blame them, their city centre is totally wiped out and some other suburbs are ruined. Watching the pictures is heartbreaking.

I'm so pleased Buckley has done doo-doos, you must be so pleased.

Nola....yes we are praying too and like Copmom I was wondering if you are anywhere nearby.

Everyone....WE HAVE POOPIE!!!!!!! Yes, Buckley finally had success about 20 minutes ago when DH took him for his walk. YIPPPEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Thank you all so much for caring and for the prayers. (I feel like the mommy whose little tyke just learned to go on the potty....lol)

Copmom....I think Feisty is a cute name....go for it. Yes, watch out with those worms! Hope the liquid med works fast and completely.

Nola, I know what you mean. Our last dogger, Scooter, is 12 and he's really gotten grey. In dog years I guess that makes him 84? But yes, he is our child.. all that's left except for that little feral kitty.. oh, hubby said guess what? I think he's a she! Now we need to think of a girl name, it's a very light grey, almost silver, and feisty as can be at the neighbors dog! Might just called her Feisty? Better get her fixed ASAP before some wandering male comes around!
Nola, are you anywhere near where they had those quakes? Prayers are out for all concerned!
{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}} ~ Lauri

Hi Buckleysmom, As a 3-dog owner myself, I fervently hope that Buckley is continuing to improve. I will be thinking of him and praying for him too. Our 3 dogs are rapidly getting to the age where I will be worrying all the time about them and they are so important to our family, my kids are grown and have left the nest, so my animals have now become my children. All the best to you and Buckley.

Please pray/have positive thoughts for those people in Christchurch New Zealand and their families and friends.

So glad to hear Buckley is better today! Prayers are being answered!!
It's so sad, we have them with us such a short time compared to human life spans! Must enjoy them while they are entrusted to our care..
As for our kitty, didn't take to vet, it IS feral after all.. have to catch him first! So went to vet and got some liquid worming medicine to put on it's food and dosed the older one as well. Must be careful, those worms are contagious to humans too.. yuck!