*precious time*

Arden giving Noah some sweet kisses after coming home...

{on Friday the 10th, i had taken Noah to the vet for allergy reasons. he was treated with two different types of medicine which ended up giving him some serious and scary side affects. we talked to our vet (and the emergency vet) many times that week and the only thing we could do for Noah was to take him off the medicine and wait for it to leave his system. almost 9 days later, Noah had returned from a grim place. we were elated. two days later, Noah was not eating, he was barely moving around, his eyes would only open half way, he had thrown up a couple times and seemed to be in a lot of pain. fast forward to this past Friday, i had made an appointment to take Noah in to find out what was going on. i'm so glad b was able to come with me. we received some devastating news. i felt my world collapse around me. we were told that since his last visit on the 10th, Noah had lost 4 1/2 pounds, his heart murmur was worse, his liver was not getting the normal enzymes needed and that his arthritis had spread into his spinal cord which now was affecting his nerves on the rear of his body. in just one and a half weeks, my Noah had gone from normal with an allergy issue to being on the borderline of not having a good "quality of life". our vet told us that out of 10, he gave Noah a 4...and if he got to a 3 we would need to "talk". he also gave us three options....1. talk with a specialist and have tons of test run on him to find out exactly all the things that were going on with him...but he warned us that most of the things that are wrong with Noah are considered "old dog" symptoms and they are not reversible. 2. do nothing. 3. try arthritis medicine and give it 4 days, after 4 days if the meds did nothing for him...then we would have to have the "talk".

i could not stop the tears from flowing, memories of the 12 years we've had with our sweet boy kept flashing in my mind. i was not prepared for this.

b and i have always tried to give Noah the best quality of life we could give him...good food, a good home, lots of love and attention and quality vet care. we were not ready to give up on him. ultimately we chose to do #3....try the medicine for four days.

the plan is to try to get him to eat twice a day and see if the medicine helps improve his daily activities.

after we said goodbye to the vet, we drove home in silence. we tried can food as soon as we got home and Noah ate for the first time in days. the rest of that day is a blur. getting something done was impossible. i just wanted to take in every ounce of my sweet Noah...while i still could. that night, we slept in the living room so that Noah could stay close to us and we could keep an eye on him.

Saturday morning, Noah was showing signs of improvement. he had eaten twice the day before and was eager to eat his breakfast. his mobility was so much better then the day before. his spirits were definitely lifted. it was a bit of relief to see our Noah coming back. tonight, we went and got frozen custard for our precious pups. they both gobbled it down with wagging tails.

we are hopeful that this medicine will help Noah with the pains of arthritis. we do not know how much time we have left with him but we are enjoying the time we DO have.

thank you so much to all my friends and family members for the uplifting messages on my facebook page, the sweet texts and for keeping Noah in your prayers. we love our Noah more then we can ever describe and we want what is best for him, we can only hope that he will be with us a little while longer.}