alone...

As you may have noticed, we are a bit behind, but with reason… 

Last weekend we headed to one of my favorite spots in Germany.

While there I had planned to take my "alone" pic, because I had the perfect idea, 

and Garmisch was the perfect spot to find what I wanted to do…  

Then the unexpected happened.  My sweet Gracie girl fell ill in the middle of our first night there.  Her symptoms were none I'd ever experienced before… she was shaking & lethargic, and unsteady on her feet.  She wasn't responding to anything that would usually perk her up.  We immediately began to assume it was the altitude… The next several hours were moments I'd rather not relive… you see, we couldn't even take the gondola back down to our car to leave, as it wasn't morning and open yet.  When we were finally able to leave, we still faced a five hour drive home.  Thank goodness for emergency vets!!  She was put on an IV, and the first round of blood work pointed to liver damage.  We then realized she had a large lump in her throat, which was growing very rapidly.  The next day more tests… to check her thyroid for one.  It ended up coming back normal (yippee!) and the rest of the blood work pointed to some sort of mystery infection.  She stopped eating and was sick all day.  More IV fluids were given, but she seemed to be going downhill fast… that night was horrible for us.  All we could do was try and soothe her and keep her comfortable.  The following day she started out slow, however she managed to eat and keep down a few small meals.  So back to the vet we go, as the lump is still growing… an ultrasound showed a fluid-filled, encapsulated area, and once again the vet thought all signs pointed to some sort of thyroid tumor.  They aspirated the lump, and sent off for more testing.  We started her on antibiotics, and waited for results.  Grace continued to regain her strength, appetite, and was returning to her normal self little by little.  When the call came in it was good news…  no tumor cells!!  We are currently continuing antibiotics, and are hoping her recovery keeps heading in the a positive direction…  So many of you have reached out to express your concern and give us your well wishes, and we are so incredibly grateful for that.  We know that there will eventually be a time, but we're so glad that time is not now, because we just aren't ready yet.  So for all of you that love your four-legged babies as much as we do, hug them tight tonight!  I can't imagine if this had gone the other direction  And the strangest part is that we are still clueless… everything happened so fast, and we have no idea what caused the symptoms or if they were even related.  So here's to hoping that's all past us now…

I ended up getting a similar shot to the one I wanted, just a little closer to home.    

and here it is

week sixteen :: alone   

me :: Laura

as for playing catch up… here's our upcoming topics

(last week) week seventeen :: guilty pleasure

(this week) week eighteen :: thankful

see you all again soon!