Bridget (Nov. 22, 2002 - Feb. 24, 2010)

Three months ago, on a Wednesday evening, Bridget had her first seizure (that we saw). It was a very small one, and we didn't think a whole lot of it, I think because we didn't want to think of it too much. But it was the first of many to come... many longer and more serious ones. She didn't respond to medical therapy, and we weren't optimistic at the outset that she would. There just aren't any good reasons for a 7 year old Boxer to begin having seizures.

We were able to tolerate them when they were fewer and further between, but about 4 weeks ago they started coming every day. Treatment helped a little bit, but not to the degree that it restored any quality of life. As things played out, yesterday afternoon she was as close to normal as we had seen in weeks... and then last evening came. It was clear that she was not moving in a good direction, but rather a direction that was a slow downward spiral. We didn't pursue MRI because we weren't going to pursue surgery for the brain tumor that it would reveal. We stopped the suffering today because she didn't deserve any of it. We didn't want to put her to sleep because we didn't want to lose her. But we had already lost her.

We have so many good memories of Bridget that we can't recount even a fraction of them here. In fact, Bridget didn't create a single bad memory for me. Sure she chewed one of Jenn's shoes when she was a puppy, but we asked for that, leaving her outside of her crate with things to chew on.

God really did bless me with a great dog for my time in vet school, and Bridget was always our "good" dog. She was absolutely wonderful with Lincoln from day one when he was a cryer/screamer, and all they way through her last day when we were still teaching him how to pet a dog nicely. We couldn't have had a better family dog.

Jenn and I were blessed to have a few bonus years with Bridget. You'll recall a few years ago that she had discospondilitis, a horrible bone infection of two of her vertebrae. I remember the evening like it was yesterday that I thought we were going to have to put her to sleep because her pain was so severe she could hardly walk straight and she couldn't use stairs. She endured extreme suffering before we could determine what was wrong, and she made a remarkable recovery. Her radiographs were never the same, but she was a happy, functional Boxer.

Bridget was part of our marriage from the start. Jenn and I picked her out in the winter of 2002, the year before we got married, after looking for weeks for a Boxer puppy. We went to a breeder that seemed to have good answers to our questions and there were two that held our interest. One was a fawn with a black mask and little flash that was darn cute but very mouthy. The other was a fawn with a lot of flash, a cow-lick like patch on the back of her neck, and not mouthy at all. Had we left the breeder with a pup on our first visit, we would have left with the former. But I insisted that we leave and think about it. We returned a few days later and came home with Bridget, and we never regretted our decision for an instant over the past 7+ years. In fact, from 2006 throught 2009, I told folks that my three least regretable purchases of my life were our cedar picket fence (at Norton Rd.), Jenn's engagement ring, and Bridget, and not necessarily in that order!

She was a great dog with Casey, Mom and Dad's old Yellow Lab. When she knew Casey, Casey was an old lady that couldn't wrestle too much, and Bridget was gentle with her. She was also a good dog with Kyra, our Doberman, as she could wrestle and bang with her and the two of them could wear each other out. She was great with Betty because she could take a lot of her crap, but then lay the smack down with the swift movement of her paw, pinning Betty on her back and showing her who was boss. How can we replace that?

There's so much going on in all of our lives that seems so much more serious than losing a dog. It may be hard to identify with our grief, and that's okay. Lincoln doesn't understand why his Mommy and Daddy are so sad right now, and he'll have no memory of Bridget when he's older. This is extremely sad for both Jenn and for me, by the way. But it's important to know that Bridget held a special place in our family that we simply cannot replace.

A Fun Family Day

Today Jenn and I had a rare day off together with little to do. So we spent most of the day playing with Lincoln and doing some usual house-keeping things together. Lincoln had some great play time today. His teeth are becoming more noticeable, as you'll see below. Also, I'd reported a while back that he's been interested in standing up (with assistance). In the past couple of days he's been placing one foot in front of the other, and with our assistance, he's been "walking" around the house. It's funny to watch.

Now that Lincoln is able to move around, Bridget has been taking some abuse. But the Best Boxer In The World has been a great family dog.

After the Spinach Episode, we decided to let Lincoln try to feed himself a bit more. We stripped him down to his under-onesie, draped him with burp cloths, and let him go for it. After today's display, we'll leave the soft stuff for some time down the road.

While Lincoln wasn't too successful at feeding himself, he did a darn good job of feeding Betty her afternoon snack.

So until he can maneuver a spoon to his mouth, we'll stick to practicing the hand-eye-mouth coordination with Puffs.

After a decent afternoon nap, he was in an exceptionally funny mood, and was hamming it up on front of the camera. It's been a while since he's given me the "cheesy smile."

I'm not sure what brought this smile on, but once he started, he just kept making this face.

Tooth #1:

Tooth #2:

Jenn is looking forward to her trip to Phoenix in less than a month. After her trip west, there's a couple more trips approaching for us. I'm heading west myself in early May for cousin Aaron Bradley's wedding, and then in late May the Gates-Gates-Hopwood family is going to the Outer Banks. Yea!!! We're really looking forward to this trip with Lincoln's Auntie Em, Uncle Jeremy, Grace and Cole.

Getting Bigger...

Jenn weighed Lincoln at home today and he's up to 18 lbs. There are babies we know of at church that are younger than he is who are in the 20# range, but for Lincoln, 18# is phenomenal. At his doctor's visit when he had Roseola he was 15.5#, and that was on Dec. 11. In five weeks he's gained 2.5#. He went for several months at a time early on in life without gaining 2.5#. So he's becoming a bit of a porker. If you've seen him eat, this wouldn't surprise you. His eating volume also explains his pooping volume. We're running through the diapers at the Gates home!

The work continues on our house. A friend from Vineyard Cleveland is coming on Tuesday to tile our kitchen, downstairs restroom and laundry room. That'll take a couple of days to finish, so we've been trying to get stuff ready so we won't have to be in those rooms. We're also pulling the border wallpaper in our bedroom. I can't find our "before" pictures right now, but for those who have seen our room, you may recall that the crazies who lived here before ran border wallpaper around the windows. Then we've got to prime the walls in our TV room so we can paint it a new color (Jenn had grown tired of the darkness of the cranberry color). So if we end up not moving, we'll have made great advancements in a short period of time!

Speaking of the TV room, my Christmas present from Jenn was recently completed at JoAnn's. She had my U.S. Constitution and Theodore Roosevelt posters framed, and they look fantastic. The matting on the Roosevelt will need some touch-up, so I have to take it back, but the frames and the mats are very impressive, and they'll be going in the TV room with the Washington Crossing The Delaware when the walls are finished.

Bridget is the best dog for a little boy, and Lincoln loves his Boxer.

Snow

Inspired by some photos a buddy of mine took recently, I decided to play with a long shutter speed & show the snow we've had in the last 36 hours at the same time. This was shot from one of our sliding doors that leads to our deck and back yard at around 4:00am. I haven't heard an official measurement, but there's at least 10 inches on the picnic table.

Grandpa Doug discovered that by making the sound of Spanish rolling "r" Lincoln gets a big smile on his face and will sometimes belly laugh.

Then we found out that making that sound when Bridget is around makes her howl as we've never heard her before. It's a funny thing to hear Lincoln laugh and Bridget howl at the same time.

Learning to Pet Bridget

Happy Lincoln

It's been an interesting past week and a half at the Gates Home. Lincoln has been doing well, though. He and I have a bit of a post-nasal drip/mild cough/sore throat thing going on, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much. In fact, twice this morning he was awakened from his nap by a cough and he was able to put himself back to sleep. This is a major development that Jenn was very happy to observe.
Learning to Pet
Lincoln's been very interested in the dogs recently. He loves to sit on Jenn's lap, especially in the morning, and watch the dogs come and go. Bridget licks him every now and then, and Betty's whisker's tickle his face sometimes. He doesn't complain at all.  He's also been quite happy in his Bumbo.  Now that he can control his head with greater ease, he's able to sit up and look around.
Pre-Lick
An cool thing happened the other day. Mom had my garage door opener, so I had to enter through the front door when I arrived home for lunch. Just as I got to the door, on the large spider web that's in front of one of the windows of the TV room, was an entangled wasp with the spider ready to pounce. It couldn't, though, because every time the spider came close the wasp would flex his "waist" and show his stinger. This lasted for a couple of minutes, and I ran to get my camera. The picture below is pretty representative. I got other pictures with the stinger out and pointed at the spider, etc., etc.
Moving in for the Kill
For a very brief moment, I felt like an amateur version of the photographers of the Planet Earth series. I've mentioned it before, but I don't think I can say it too often: it is the coolest DVD series I've ever seen. Jenn and I have almost made it through all of the episodes, but we're by no means done watching it. There are animals and symbiotic processes featured that Jenn and I were completely unaware of. At times we just looked at each other and said, "Holy cow!" Truthfully, I'm not sure how anyone can watch this series and not, at the very least, believe in Intelligent Design. Micro-Evolution is clearly on display in the series, but to be fair, there is little to no mention of Macro-Evolution, nor are there obnoxious political messages. (Trust me, I was combing the episodes for them.) Well, that's enough of my commercial for Planet Earth.

For those into politics, check out this piece at the American Thinker.  It's pretty compelling.

Lincoln is asleep now, Jenn is reading on the couch, and things are pretty relaxing at the Gates Home.

Learning to sleep at night

Bridget, the best Boxer

Time has been flying by. I can't believe it's almost been a week since we've passed along an update. The past week has been an interesting one. Lincoln, beginning last weekend sometime, started getting up 2 and 3 times in the middle of the night. This was especially tough on Sunday/Monday overnight and Monday/Tuesday overnight, as Jenn had full days of work ahead of her. Some of the times I was able to get him to go back to sleep without much effort, but other times he was quite angry and very hungry. To make a long story short, we've found most recently that by increasing his feeding frequency during the day, and not waking him for a last meal at night, he's slept much better overnight, getting up just once. If he's waking up because he's hungry (which certainly seems to be the case because he's chowing down around 2:00am) than that is totally fine with us.

His wake times have been fabulous. He's been pleasant and happy and a whole lot of fun for his mom. Naps are still a challenge, but we're going to make it. All children, it seems, have an area or two (or three or four) in which they're a challenge to their parents, and his ability/inability to fall asleep on his own seems to be ours at this time.

The poopy diaper that he gave to Sali in the last post was quite the monster clean-up job. What's interesting is that he went another six days after that until his next poopy diaper. ONE POOPY DIAPER IN A 13 DAY STRETCH...HOLY COW!!! We're not sure why that's the case, but he seems to be a bit more regular now. He's always very pleasant after a poopy diaper.

Finally, if you're enjoying the photos of Lincoln, they're not entirely our doing. The Parkinson family has given us two very nice lenses that have allowed us to make documenting Lincoln's early months both beautiful and fun. Jenn and I are thankful for their wonderful presents every time we photograph our little boy!

Welcome, family and friends

If you're part of our extended family and friends, WELCOME!  Next time you're talking with another family member, ask if they've heard about our blog, and if not, let them know about it.  Visit often.

Jenn's doing well.  Lincoln is having routine Jazzercise sessions.  Bridget & Betty are as crazy and good as ever.  Things are good at the Gates house.