It is with the heaviest and saddest heart that I write that my adventures in Abbyism have now come to an end. At approximately 3:45pm, Saturday, June 21st my little one experienced a stroke that left her neck twisted and her right side paralyzed — leaving her unable to walk or even stand on her own.

I always promised her that when her illness made it impossible for her to go on with a quality life, that we would seek a quiet and peaceful end. And even though she did not know what had happened to her and why her body would not respond how it always had, she still fought to be with us, it ultimately proved to be too much for her to overcome. With the aid of our kindly emergency vet, Abby crossed the rainbow bridge around 5:30pm.

She weathered the many storms of my life, and still greeted each day with a stretch and a wag of her tail. She was my rock, without my dear, dear Abby, I would not have made it through moving so far from home — just the two of us, the loss of my father, the breakup of my marriage, finally graduating from college and owning our first home – complete with her own fenced backyard and doggy door. There are a million other little events that she happily shared; picnics and parties, walks, runs, trips across country in planes, cars and trucks. She’s been in every state on the eastern seaboard, from New York south to Florida, she’s attended the Orlando International Fringe Festival, was in a short movie and had her own blog category since 2003.

I will miss her not so quiet snoring and sleeping squeaks, her voracious appetite for McDonalds cheese burgers, milk bones, and pretty much all food prior to January. I miss her trying to wake me up an hour earlier just so she could eat her breakfast on her schedule and not mine. I will miss her willfulness, her diva-ness and her out and out love of life, and of us. I will miss the way she turned her head when you said “Milkbones” as if to say ” did you just say my favorite word… didja? didja? didja? You DID say my favorite word – gimme! GImme! GIMMEEEEEEE! ” I will miss her fancy Beagle attitude, and even the cold shoulder she gave me when picking her up from the kennel after a week’s vacation that she could not go on. I had to work to get back in her good graces with Milkbones, and lots of them.

But most of all, I will miss the crazy, energetic “I’m so happy you’re home” race track/zippidity dance through the house she performed when I came home – whether I was gone all day or just a half hour. She let me know in no uncertain terms that I was special to her. How could one have a bad day with a greeting like that? No matter how bad my day had been, it brightened when I came home and she greeted me. She let me know that I was special to her.

Yesterday morning, when I awoke I went looking for her. I was halfway down the stairs when I realized I would not find her. I imagine we will both continue to do this until it sinks in that she is gone. Her beds are still in their places – in the den, in the basement and in our bedroom, next to my side of the bed. These will have to move, put away. But not just yet, I’m not ready for that final acknowledgment. Perhaps, in a few weeks, when we get her ashes back, it will be time to put her things away for good. Right now, I’m just missing her.

Its been several months since Abby’s diagnosis of liver and pancreatic cancer. And several months since we made the tough decision to not treat the disease with chemotherapy as it would not cure it, only prolong her life a few months at best. Since the end of March, Abby’s been on a daily medical cocktail of prednisone, mirtazapine and metroconizole (sp?) to stimulate her appetite, combat nausea and vomiting.  Unfortunately, the nature of cancer is to steal food from the body, to feed the tumor. This means our girl has gone from a healthy and sleek 28 pounds down to a skeletal 18 pounds. I won’t share photos because its just too sad. Abby should be remembered as the glorious and beautiful girl that she has been for last 14 years.

Thus far, the drugs have been working, along with a liquid vitamin that she can’t seem to get enough of. In the last few weeks, Tim and I have seen a return of the beagle of old — when certain foods are around she just goes into wild over drive – nothing will stand in her way of getting . that . food . Foods such as Panera Bread’s upside down pineapple muffin, blueberry muffins, strawberry shortcake with whipped cream, banana pudding, Chipoltle chicken, Vietnamese grilled chicken, beef tenderloin have all spurred the Beaglette to go wide eyed in anticipation and dive head first into whatever container holds the nirvana she smells. You could say that, she’s a dessert queen after my own heart.

So while she’s skinny, and she’s still with us. These days she sleeps a lot more than before, but that could be due to being 14, and she’s still has a happy little wag for everyone she meets. In the last few weeks, she’s lost some of her listfulness that plagued her early on and with that the return of some of her diva like behavior. That tells me, she’s still with us and still wants to be here. Its all we can ask for.

We’ve been home invaded. Not just once, but everyday for the last three days! I don’t know what we’re going to do…

The first time was Sunday afternoon, I was getting ready to go to a birthday party for our neighbors twin’s when I noticed the uninvited guest boldly coming towards me up the basement stairs. He quickly turned tail and ran under the basement staircase where I could not reach him, but I could hear him fumbling around in the underbelly of the house. This was not a good thing. Thanks to my friend Nancy, who was able to get him to vacate the premises.

My second invasion took place Monday evening as I was watching the Showtime series Dexter. I kept hearing a noise that was not consistent with the action on the TV. It was a steady “Meow, meow, meow.” It took three instances of the meows to actually alert me to the home invader’s presence. Abby, who was snuggling with me on the couch, was completely unaware that there was an uninvited guest in the house. Some watch dog she’s turned out to be! Furthermore, she stayed snuggled under the blanket we shared, making me the one to chase said “guest” through the house and down the basement to get him finally leave.

Last night, I thought I was being smart by keeping the door to the basement closed, as this has been our invader’s entry point for each incident. However, this did not work for Abby, who uses the doggy door in the basement to come and go into the backyard. So about 8:30pm, I relented and opened the basement door so she could come and go at will. About a half hour later, I heard the same sound from Monday night, lo and behold, my intruder was back. Abby this time had the presence of mind to stop snuggling and glare at the intruder. She didn’t actually get up or do anything, that was my job, AGAIN, it seems.

So now what? Well, when we bought the doggy door a few years ago, we got one that was pretty high tech that came with a sensor for Abby’s collar and one for the door. The sensor would only open the door for any critter wearing the matching sensor on their collar, this keeping intruders out and  Abby’s been pretty good at managing the cats and squirrels in the yard, so we never replaced the battery on the collar sensor when it died. So then we thought, well if she’s managing the cats and squirrels in the yard, then does she really need to have that dead battery sensor around her neck? No? Okay, so we removed that from her collar.

You would think the solution would be simple, right? Just replace the battery in the collar sensor, put the sensor back on Abby’s collar and our home invasion problems should be solved. Right?

Now we just need to find the #@$!&%* collar sensor.

Abby’s latest adventure is going to work as a junior, junior, junior engineer on Tim’s design team. OK, so she’s really not a junior engineer, however, she does go to work with him several days a week. This is especially wonderful because:

• Tim’s office is VERY dog friendly
• It keeps her engaged and among people
• Allows her to eat at several different intervals during the day instead of once or twice a day
• Gives her time with her best buddy (Tim)
• She and Tim also get a bit of exercise as they walk Goose Poop Lake (their name, not the real one) at least once a day.
• Lastly, it makes me feel better, because I know she’s not alone — someone is watching out for her.

So far she’s relearned that she loved tomatoes and today, she’s discovered an interest in Tuna Salad.

For several months now, we’ve had a problem with the cold water tap in the downstairs bathroom. When you first turn it on and for the next 5 seconds or so, the water runs a scary orangy yellow color, and then turns colorless. While the temporary color of the water matches nicely with the orange walls in the bathroom, it really isn’t appetizing. Which meant the copper pipes feeding the cold water tap in the sink have corroded and need to be replaced.

As with most of our projects here at 43rd Street, things don’t always go as planned. In the process of making the repair, we can’t get to some of the pipes and need to tear out the ugly particle board vanity that the previous owners so kindly installed. Which means we replaced the vanity with a beautiful new pedestal sink. We began the process on Sunday, with two, count ’em, two trips to Home Depot, and another two more trips to replace the cracked sink basin and purchase the sink trap and diamond drill bits to go through what we thought was just tile.

Last night was the final night of put together, Tim drilled holes in the floor and the wall tiles to secure the new sink, we hooked up the faucet and et voila! We have running water… and then we have a leak coming from the one pipe we did not replace. Once we replace the last pipe coming out of the wall, it should all work. If you have tried standard plunging and household cleaners to fix a clogged drain or sewer line for instance, and it isn’t working, contact High Priority Plumbing at 912-373-7707 for immediate response.