Brizzy's Rainbow Day

It is with great sadness and a broken heart that I have to write what I never wanted to write ... that yesterday we sent our sweet Brizzy over the Rainbow Bridge. His spirit was strong but his body was too weak, and the cancer won. But it didn't win out quickly! It was a fight to the finish, not just by us but by this magnificent, gentle, strong-willed woof. I have learned some powerful lessons from him about strength and the will to keep going, and about loving others so much that you want to stay with them despite pain and difficulties and a body that can't cooperate like it used to.

Sometimes we are lucky to be blessed with special individuals who come into our life and touch us in ways we never thought possible. Brizzy has enriched me in just such a way. He taught me deep lessons about unconditional love and how to really enjoy the quiet, peaceful moments in life. He taught me how to sacrifice for another being and to give up my own wants for the wants of another. He gave Ruth the most sacred gift of all: what it feels like to be a mother. She who is a wonderful soul and who has longed for a family, but who hasn't had the privilege of being married and bearing children (yet), had this wonderful dog to fill the gap. Even though he was a dog and not a human child, Ruth loved him and cared for him as if he were her child. They had a very special bond, those two, and it was a privilege to be a part of it in my small way. Mostly I was the sister and the "alternate mom," which is a pretty good role for someone as independent as I.

Brizzy shared with me the gift of living in the moment and boy did he have a thing or two to teach me about enjoying FOOD! (Not that I needed that lesson - hah.) And best of all, I who have no children either was gifted with the opportunity to love and sacrifice for another living being, and to give up my own selfish wants for the wants of another.

Ruth and I will be okay. Though our hearts are hurting and we will miss him desperately, we are being blanketed in a warm cocoon of love and support from you: our family and friends and ward family, and it is seeing us through. The Lord promised Ruth in a blessing that the Comforter would come ... and He has. But what I never expected is that He would come through feelings of peace but ALSO through the service of all of you. We are both overwhelmed by it.

I am so glad that Brizzy enjoyed what he could right up to the end: Wednesday night he ate two hamburgers PLUS his regular dish of dog food, and Thursday morning he had an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's Peach Ice Cream (he ate EVERY BIT OF IT with gusto) PLUS he ate almost a full bowl of dog food, and on his way to the vet's office he ate a ton of peanut butter. In fact, his final acts were to let us pet him and cry over him and look at us both with big, I love-you eyes, and THEN try to finish off as much of the peanut butter as we would allow him. He ate half the bottle before Dr. Edmonds told us we'd better stop (it could have come back up when all his organs relaxed - euww). So when he crossed that rainbow bridge, it was with his very favorite taste in the whole wide world on his lips -- peanut butter.

I would like to add a quote and a poem I found which I really liked:

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace." ~Milan Kundera~

THE CREATION

When God had made the earth and sky
the flowers and the trees,
He then made all the animals
the fish, the birds and bees.

And when at last He'd finished
not one was quite the same.
He said, "I'll walk this world of mine
and give each one a name."

And so He traveled far and wide
and everywhere He went,
a little creature followed Him
until its strength was spent.

When all were named upon the earth
and in the sky and sea,
the little creature said, "Dear Lord,
there's not one left for me."

Kindly the Father said to him,
"I've left you to the end.
I've turned my own name back to front
and called you dog, My friend."
~Author Unknown~

Goodbye Sweet Brizzy -- I am so grateful for the knowledge I possess which teaches me that there IS a Spirit World and I will see you again. Run free -- Run fast -- and eat joyfully!

A Briz-man Update - not such happy news

I was going to talk about last week's really enjoyable Relief Society enrichment evening (and I still will) but tonight before I go home I wanted to post an update about our little woof (and mine & Ruth's state of mind(s)).

It's with much sadness (but not with the same overwhelming pain we experienced two weeks ago) I write that once again things have taken a turn and it's now sure that our little Brizzy has cancer. "Sigh." The only reason I'm able to write this without the same deep, raw pain I (and Ruth) experienced a couple of Sundays ago is because the Lord has been so good to us and has allowed us both to come to terms with the possibility that this could be cancer after all. He could have taken Brizzy right after Halloween when it got really bad. And in the ensuing four days it looked as if Brizzy really was ready to go. But nope, that little dog rallied and in the past two weeks he led us to believe he would get well after all. His pain diminished and he perked up and it was so evident he wanted to still be living. So the Lord has allowed this to play out in its own ebb and flow, and because of that we've been given time to accept and even prepare.

What a painful but educational roller coaster we've been on. NOT the kind of education I wanted to have, but it's one I get to have anyway. As much as I want it to be different, I am still grateful for what I have learned and (yes) am experiencing. Isn't that crazy? But true. We went from "What's that limping about?" to "Oh no, he can't walk very well!" to "The front leg is so swollen" to "OH NO, Briz can't walk at all" to "It's probably cancer" to "But he's rallying, and look he's walking again - how could that be cancer?" to "No cancer in the biopsy!" to "Look at the x-rays, I'm 80% sure it's cancer" to "Look how well he's doing" to "If it was cancer it would have manifested itself by now, so I may be wrong and I'm cautiously saying it's 80% NOT cancer" to "Oh no, now the back leg is swelling" to "Now his little face and neck are all swollen!" to "I'm so sorry to tell you this ..." "Sigh."

We both knew. I think as soon as Brizzy's face began to swell and his nose to run, I knew. And as soon as the large lump appeared under Brizzy's chin, in his ruff - Ruth knew. I hope you don't think that our vet has been insensitive or incompetent because he couldn't get an accurate diagnosis right off the bat -- our Little Man is such a fighter he pushed back the symptoms and refused to succomb. Today Dr. Edmonds said Brizzy "had the heart of a lion" and I agree. All through this experience he has fought to get better and has been so patient with Ruth and I as we've administered all kinds of holistic stuff and made him get up and "go poddy" when he didn't want to and petted and fussed and mothered (and probably smothered) him. So patient.

So now ... we wait. He is in minimal (if any) pain right now and we have some STRONG diuretic pills to get all that water out of him, and as long as Brizzy wants to be here and is not hurting, we will do whatever we have to do to make his life comfortable and we will take it one day at a time. Dr. Edmonds said that he will try to get Brizzy through Christmas, but we will see. And we will not let him suffer just to have him a few weeks longer. But you can bet that each day he's here will be relished.

And through this whole traumatic experience, both Ruth and I have experienced so much love and kindness from our wonderful families, our wonderful friends, our wonderful Ward friends. People have been so good to us: no one has mocked our pain, and we have been given phone calls and hugs and pats and blessings and kind acts of service. I don't think I will ever forget the kindness and care we are being blanketed in. I wish I could do for others half of what others are doing for me. I feel very humbled.

Case in point, just from today: Several of the Young Men came over today and for a service project they dug up all those yukky, long stringy weeds that were all over our front yard. We haven't had the time or the tools to get those darn weeds out of that cold ground and they really created a problem for "picking up poops," etc. It may have felt like a simple act of service to those young men, but they really REALLY helped us and I feel much gratitude towards them. And then my friend, Margaret forwarded a YouTube video of the "the Sky Angel Cowboy." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0r_FbARIn8&NR=1. The religious reporters get a little over the top but that wasn't the point of the video - it was the message that God understands our pain because he experienced the death of His own son.

Onward we go - and in the end (if we're lucky) we remember that God is Good, loving someone is worth the pain of losing them, and we never really lose them anyway because we KNOW what awaits us in the Spirit World.

WHOOO-HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES YES YES!!!! We heard from our vet today and he told us that the pathologist found NO CANCER in Brizzy's biopsy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHEEEEEEE!!!

Who says prayers don't work?!

Of course he did add the caveat that it's possible there's something deeper in Brizzy's bone that wasn't reached, so we're not totally out of the woods yet. BUT we choose to think that the Lord has decided we could keep our little woof around for a while longer. He'll be on strong antibiotics for another week and then we'll see what's next ... another biopsy, or something else.

But for today ... TODAY is a GOOD DAY!!!!!