Hannah Rose

There are two kinds of people in the world; those who see their pets as family and those who have no heart. I am clearly in the first camp. Cats and dogs have always been so much more than pets to me - they are family.

Hannah Rose was one of those family members. I had to put Tiffany down shortly before her twentieth birthday. She had been with me since she was a kitten. It took about a year, before I was ready for another cat; not one to replace Tiffany, of course, but one to be a new companion.

The Humane Society of Wisconsin was running a free adoption special on adult cats. I fell in love with a beautiful girl they had named Sparkle. The rest of the family fell in love with an adorable little black and white girl. The adoption counselor, of course, suggested that we could get two! I wasn't keen on getting two, but I knew without a doubt that "Sparkle" was my girl and Diane and the boys wanted the other one.

As you would expect, we left with two...

The people at the Humane Society really had no idea how old the girls were, but they were at least one year old that day they came to their new home.

Sparkle became Hannah Rose before we even got to the car. I don't remember the other cat's name at the shelter, but she became Haley; an appropriate name because she is like a comet!

Hannah was my girl, though.

My office was in our home at the time, and Hannah promptly claimed the back of my desk chair as her spot. She spent many hours there as I madly typed code. She was definitely "my" cat and I was wrapped around her little paw.

That was fourteen and a half years ago, and our relationship never wavered. She spent countless hours graciously allowing me to pet her as she sat on my lap. She grew a bit more restless in recent years and would jump up and down from my lap a dozen times as we watched hockey or baseball games, but she always preferred my lap over any other. I loved to feel her soft coat and hear her gentle purr as I stroked her.

Hannah was also our mouser. Even as recently as a week and a half or so ago, Diane went downstairs to find a dead mouse proudly displayed for all to see.

Hannah Rose was a big girl - until just a couple of weeks ago, that is. We noticed she was starting to lose weight and eating less of her hard food. We started offering soft food which she took readily at first, but even that was met with a less than enthusiastic response after a bit. We also noticed that she was starting to drool and it was a bit blood tinged at times.

Hannah Rose took a turn for the worse over the weekend. She began rejecting even soft food and was very restless. We knew we had to make the tough decision to let her go before she started suffering.

Diane called the vet's office as soon as they opened yesterday. They had several openings, but she chose the one in the afternoon that would allow me to leave work early so I could be with Hannah at the end.

We put Hannah Rose in a towel lined box to take her to the vet. She fought being in the box at first, but then it was almost as if she realized that this was best and settled. They took us right into a room and the doctor came in to check her. She knew immediately that Hannah had developed a very aggressive malignant tumor in her mouth. She said it was fairly common in cats and that it was reaching a point where it was hurting her. She reassured us that it was time.

We had a few minutes to stroke and snuggle Hannah as they went to prepare everything needed to compassionately euthanize her. Our tears flowed as we said goodbye to my precious Hannah Rose. She purred even as the medicine coursed through her veins and she peacefully fell asleep.

The vet's office made a clay plaque with her name and her paw print that now sits on my dresser - a permanent reminder of my precious girl.

The vet helped us wrap Hannah in the towel and put her back in the box for her final trip home.

We buried Hannah Rose next to Tiffany behind the pond in our backyard. Two rocks mark her grave.

I will never forget my sweet Hannah Rose.

The Empty Space

It's amazing how cavernous a space seems to be when it is empty. Even tiny spaces seemingly swell to great proportions when the contents disappear. The cavern may be real, or only a figment of our imagination. In a few cases; it is both.

There's an empty space tucked into the woods at the top of our driveway. For nearly two decades, that space has been filled with an amazing little fourteen foot aluminum fishing boat on a simple trailer. It had always been my dream to own a little fishing boat, but we weren't in a position to really do it. That all changed when we got a small inheritance after Nana died. We decided that we would take that money and buy the fishing boat I had always wanted.

I searched the newspapers diligently until I found a 1965 Lone aluminum boat. She had been painted in a rough camo pattern that had long ago faded into subtle shades of gray. She sat on a rather decrepit old homemade trailer.

She was beautiful.

I still remember the day we hooked her up to the back of the car and took her home.

We christened her, "That's Nice," because it was something Nana commonly said. Whether you told her about your day or you shared your thoughts and dreams, her standard reply was, "That's nice." Nana never said a bad word about anyone. Her response to things she wasn't all that excited about was typically her standard, "That's Nice."

We all agreed that naming our boat That's Nice was an appropriate way to remember and honor Nana.

That's Nice was so much more than a simple fishing boat. It was a memory making machine.

I bought an old, small outboard and our family began making deposits in the bank of memories. We'd fish and we'd ride around in our beautiful little boat. The boys were ecstatic when we'd buzz across the lake and I'd suddenly spin in a tight circle to pop us back over our own wake and make the boat rock and jump. It doesn't take much to make a 14 foot aluminum boat rock and jump.

Sometimes, we would tie a rope onto the back of the boys' life jackets and they would jump (or be thrown) overboard and swim around until it came time to drag them back inside and head for shore.

Through the years, we upgraded the outboard and trailer and equipped her with a locator and other accessories. No matter what we did with everything around the boat, though, the old aluminum hull was a constant.

The boys interests changed as they grew older. Joseph would go fishing with me once or twice a season. He was only happy when we put the boat over a large school of tiny panfish that would immediately bite on virtually anything he threw out there. He would catch dozens of fish in a short time. While Joseph did some fishing, our time in the boat was mostly spent just talking. Once the bite tapered off, it was time to go home.

Matthew, on the other hand, would spend hours in the boat; casting and retrieving with the hope and expectation that the next cast would catch the big one. We drifted down rivers and motored around lakes in pursuit of bass, walleye, northerns or perch. It didn't really matter if the fish were biting or not; we were in the boat and we were together.

I hoped that those days would last forever.

I knew, of course, that they couldn't and they wouldn't.

The boys grew up. Their lives moved on and they moved away.

I would look at That's Nice as I came up the drive; thinking I should get her out again, but there were always other things that needed my time and attention.

So she sat.

I knew I should just sell her since I wasn't using her, but I couldn't bring myself to let her go. There were just too many memories piled up in that old aluminum hull. Too many hours of laughter and joy.

Last week, my seemingly rational thoughts took over and I listed her on Craigslist and the Facebook Marketplace. I had several inquiries almost immediately, but they wanted to split her up and buy the outboard only.

Then came THE EMAIL.

Hello,

I saw your boat posted on Craigslist. I am interested in seeing it. I am in Mukwonago and can stop by before noon today (5/16), before 10am tomorrow (5/17) or Friday morning.

Please let me know if any of those times work for you.

Thank you.

Andy

That started a string of emails that led to me taking the boat to the launch at Phantom Lake so he could see her running. 

He told me about his family, and how his kids were so excited to get a fishing boat. He told me he'd been looking for about a year but couldn't find one in their price range with an engine nearly as new and nice as hers.

He made an offer.

We shook hands and agreed to meet Friday afternoon at the bank to complete the transaction.

Part of me regretted it right away, but I honored our deal.

I got all of the paperwork together and marked up some lake maps for some of our favorite fishing spots.

I fought back tears as I hooked her up to the back of my truck for one last time and headed to the bank. We went over everything and I unhooked her and drove away.

A new family is making memories with her now.

So now there is an empty spot tucked into the woods at the top of our driveway and a cavernous hole in my heart.

Beyond Explanation

Every once in a great while, we get to experience something that defies explanation.

Something so unexpected that we have a hard time believing it.

Something so "out there" that we catch ourselves waiting for someone to call and say it was all a joke and we come crashing back to reality.

Something with no real human explanation.

Perhaps you can't understand it until you've lived through it.

Last Spring (we still haven't gotten to a "this Spring" in Wisconsin this year, but that's a different story entirely), I went to National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to participate in a familial midgut Carcinoid study. They found a couple of suspicious spots when running a special PET/CT that is not available in many places. That lead to them running more tests which came back inconclusive. They requested that I submit to a capsule camera study for definitive answers to what showed up on the scan.

I went through all of the prep (no fun at all) and swallowed the capsule on the morning of the test. I went about my day with a special harness that allowed me to peek at what the camera was seeing. I, of course, had no real idea of what I was looking at, but it was pretty cool nonetheless for a geek like me to watch my innards.

Upon completion of the study, they collected the harness and downloaded the data for review. One of the research fellows was suspicious of several areas, so the study was sent out to be read by an outside expert. Due to some circumstances that I still don't completely understand, the outside expert failed to read the study and the two weeks stretched out to just shy of nine months. I got "the call" from the lead researcher one morning last December. He told me the results were finally in and the study showed five definite Carcinoid tumors and four suspicious spots. I was scheduled to head back to NIH in March of this year for some more scans and surgery to remove the affected areas of my small intestine. I was told to expect to stay in the hospital for up to two weeks.

Diane and I made all of the arrangements for her Mom and our critters and made our way to NIH one Sunday in March. I checked into the hospital bright and early Monday morning and started through the gauntlet of tests and exams. My first major test was a repeat of the special PET/CT that had started this whole journey.

The entire research team makes their way into the room each evening to discuss the results of the day's tests and prepare for the next day. Diane and I waited patiently in the room for them to appear during rounds. The team walked in, shook hands and then the lead doctor suggested that Diane and I sit down. That was a bit surprising since I already knew I had cancer and couldn't imagine that they could really hit me with much worse.

We sat down and the lead doctor said, "We have some good news for you." The team proceeded to tell me that my scan was completely clear. Had that been my first scan, they would have said it was negative and I would not have been brought back on the one year protocol.

To say I was shocked would be putting it mildly.

We asked about the previous scans.

We asked about the camera study.

The doc said that it could have just been an artifact or anomaly on the initial scan. He was harder pressed to deal with the camera study, though. He suggested that maybe they saw a fold in the intestine and thought it was a tumor. When pressed on that being possible with one or two spots, but virtually impossible with five confirmed and four suspicious spots, he admitted that he really didn't know. All they knew was that I don't have cancer now. They were going to go forward with one more scan the next morning, but if that was clear (as they expected), I would be free to go home.

They cancelled the remaining tests, pre-anesthesia meetings and surgery. Just one more CT and then I could go home.

Wow.

Just wow.

People may offer up any number of explanations for such an amazing result, but they just can't explain that an expert in the field would make nine mistakes on one study. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that God answered the prayers of so many of His people who lifted Diane and me up before him as we headed to NIH.

I still have a hard time believing it. In fact, I still kind of pause to catch my breath every time I get a notification that something new has been added to my electronic health record; half expecting that it's going to be the wake up call from this dream.

I don't claim to know why God chooses to heal some people and not others, but He does. For some reason that I am not likely to comprehend this side of eternity, He chose to remove the cancer from my body.