Let it Snow!

For those of you who live a little further north, you may not quite understand the excitement we had a little over a week ago when we got...snow! (For the record, it has been two years since we have seen any type of snow here.) When we woke up in the morning everything was covered in a beautiful white blanket which proceeded to melt off throughout the afternoon and by evening the roads were completely dry. It was perfect - just enough to take a few pictures and then gone before navigating the roads became difficult. After attending school in the mountains for so many years I had my fill of snow, but now I kind of miss it from time to time. (But not enough to ever live in the mountains again!)

Holly wonders what is going on outside (she is an inside only cat)

Our backyard in the morning with the snow still falling

Our outside rescue kitty (who for the winter months is living primarily in our garage with a heating pad!) checking out the snow

I did realize a big drawback to a snow day when you work from home full time - it is still a work day even when everything shuts down. Patrick was home from work all day and got to enjoy the snow and I was so jealous (since it will probably be another couple of years before we see any snow again!)

Catching Up

So I realize that I am terribly behind with my blogging as of late...with everything that has been going on with Caddy I haven't really kept up with this too well and there's been a lot going on! I'll try to catch you up on what we've been up to lately and then hopefully I'll get myself back on track again. (Of course, knowing me that's highly unlikely...here's hoping anyway!)

To start the catch up process - Merry Christmas! Patrick and I went to his family home on Christmas Eve for a holiday party with all of Chris and Bill's friends which was a lot of fun. We then drove to my sister Carolyn's house to spend Christmas day with my mom, Carolyn, Brian, and Bethany. Bill and Chris came and joined us for Christmas dinner and it was really nice for us to be able to spend time with both of our families. My mom and Chris had time for girl talk since neither had many kitchen responsibilities (which is probably unusual for both of them!) and the guys went outside to the grill with the asparagus. (I think guys like any excuse to go stand by a grill!) Carolyn made a wonderful Christmas dinner (with a little help from me!) and it was great getting to try some new things. She's a vegetarian so she has some really yummy recipes that I don't usually make. (She did have a Honey Baked Ham for the rest of us as well!) Here are just a few pictures from Christmas:

Our fireplace - yes, our girls have their own stockings

The "Baker" bunch - Patrick, me, Bethany, Carolyn & Brian

Over Christmas break my dear friend Jennifer, her husband Patrick, and their adorable daughter Morgan came for a visit. I just so happen to be Morgan's godmother, and I might be biased, but I think she is the most precious little girl in the world. She has grown up so much since we saw her last summer and I hope that we get to visit again this summer. She is growing up so fast and I don't want to miss it! Patrick and Patrick got to talk a lot of sports (although Jennifer and I are pretty avid fans ourselves) and it was wonderful to have them here. Morgan even made us breakfast one morning!

Unfortunately Caddy was still pretty sick on their return trip through Charlotte, but she showed her love to our friends by adopting the basket they gave us at Christmas as her very own. I think this is her new favorite place to spend time! (I wanted to recaim it for the family, but Jennifer has given me permission to let her keep it...for now!)

Caddy's favorite spot

Since I haven't been giving any football updates lately, for those of you that don't follow the NFL let's just say that the Panthers went down in flames during the playoffs. We had a first round bye and then a home game during which we were absolutely destroyed. I will still love them, and here are a few pictures of happier times (the last home game I attended this year.)

I will be better about updating this more frequently from now on (or at least I promise to try to be!)

Caddy Update

First of all, thank you all so much for praying for our Caddy. I don't think there has ever been a cat with more people praying for and checking in on her. All of you calling, emailing, texting, and checking on her progress has been so encouraging for Patrick and I. This has been a pretty difficult ordeal, but Caddy has made significant improvements!

She is no longer on any of her prescriptions (and she is finally done with the fluid treatments - thank goodness!) She did okay with the fluids initially, but those last couple of days were pretty difficult and if you could have heard the cries she was making you would have thought we were torturing her. Her energy level has gotten much better, but she's still not quite back to the activity level she was at before this happened. Every day brings more progress though, so we are hopeful that one day she will be running wild again. She has not vomited in two weeks now, which is another great indication of her recovery.

She will go back to the vet next week for some additional blood tests, which should help us determine what her long term treatment will be. The vet did indicate that Caddy will need blood work every 6 months once she is fully recovered, just to keep an eye on all her levels. If something abnormal occurs again they want to be able to catch it early so she doesn't get as bad as she did this time. I'm pretty scared about what her results will be, but her initial blood work came back okay so hopefully this is just a precaution.

The hardest part now (and this is extremely selfish on my part, so if this is the only thing that remains I will be forever grateful) is that Caddy is not too thrilled with me these days. She has always preferred me (the one kitty that loved me best!) but as she recovers she is reluctant to let me pick her up or pet her. Patrick can do both of these without a problem, but she is shying away from me. She'll still nuzzle me and purr, but I really miss my "Caddy Cuddles." I hope that as she continues to recover she'll forgive me for everything we had to put her through (all the trips to the vets, the medications, the sitting with her for hours to encourage her to eat!) and will be "my" kitty again. Like I said, that is totally selfish but I really miss the special bond that we always shared.

I'm really sorry that I haven't been keeping up with this blog the way that I should be lately. With everything that has been going on with Caddy, it has been hard for me to talk about since for awhile I really was not sure that she was going to recover. Those of you with pets understand how they really are a part of your family, and my heart ached watching her suffer and not being able to do anything for her.

I'll keep you posted on the results of her follow up blood work and maybe I'll actually start blogging again sometime soon as well!

PLEASE PRAY

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. I have a lot to add about what we’ve been up to lately, but right now I am in desperate need of your prayers for my little Caddy. She is our one and a half year old cat who is extremely ill. My heart is broken right now and we really need a miracle.

On Saturday evening she started vomiting a lot. We called the emergency vet and they instructed us to reintroduce water in four hours to see how she did with that. At 1:00 am she drank two sips of water and promptly threw up several more times. Patrick and I rushed her to the emergency vet where we spent the next four hours. They took x-rays but did not find anything abnormal. They gave her two medicinal injections and a fluid injection to keep her hydrated. We also left with a prescription we had to squirt in her mouth with a syringe every 8 hours. We left the emergency vet at 5:30 am, with just enough time for Patrick to come home and shower and head straight to work (with absolutely no sleep.) She continued to vomit throughout Sunday so we brought her to our vet first thing Monday morning.

Our vet did some blood work and thankfully the results came back within the normal ranges. They gave her another injection of fluids and her vomiting ceased early Monday morning. We thought we were on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, she continued to show no interest in eating and was extremely lethargic. I called our vet on Tuesday morning who instructed me to bring her in immediately to meet with their ultrasound specialist as she detected a distended colon in her x-rays from the ER vet. I drove her to the vet in a blind panic and we waited while the ultrasound specialist looked very thoroughly over every organ in her little body. I broke down and even Patrick had tears welled up in his eyes. The picture on the screen was so similar to when a pregnant woman has her ultrasound (except there was no baby and cries of joy when you saw the pictures on the screen appear.) Each time she reached a different organ I felt like my legs were going to give out and I just wanted to curl up on the floor.
We found out that she has pancreatitis and striping on her liver. After another injection of fluids and another medicinal injection we were able to take her home, but she may still need to be hospitalized to have a feeding tube inserted if she does not start eating over the next 24 hours. We left the vet’s office with three prescriptions and a fourth that was called into our local Rite Aid store. Patrick had to pick it up and verify that he was Caddy’s “parent or guardian.” We also have a bag of fluids with a pack of needles that we have to inject into her subcutaneously every day. So that is three medicines injected into her mouth via syringe (some multiple times per day), one she is supposed to eat, and 100 ml of fluids we have to stick into her each day. Needless to say in the midst of all of this she still feels terrible so this is an extremely difficult process.

Please pray for her to gain an interest in eating again so that she does not have to be hospitalized. Please pray for her pancreas to heal and for her to begin to feel better. Please pray that she will continue to allow us to administer all of her medications that will help her to fight this. And please pray for Patrick and I to have the strength to be the parents that our little girl needs right now. She is hurting and sick and this could be life threatening so please pray that God will grant us a miracle. Caddy already is a little miracle (see my post about the Not So Brave Little Kitten for her story) and now she needs one more. Please pray for God to heal my girl.

11-3

Today the Panthers won their last home game and are now 11-3 for the season! They officially won every game at home this year (since the last two games are on the road) and are going to face the New York Giants next Sunday. It is going to be a huge game and it got moved to prime time - this is so exciting!

I went to visit my friend Meredith this past weekend and we spent lots of time catching up. Of course we watched a bunch of chick flicks as well, but we talked right through one of them and neither of us could figure out what was going on! Since I was gone this past weekend I am going to try to frantically clean my house after work this week in preparation for the arrival of my friend Jennifer and her family from WV. I absolutely cannot wait to see them!

Thursday will be my last official day in the office. We are all going to be working from home full time, and Thursday will be the last day we'll all be in the office together. My home office is a disaster area right now. Patrick and I are converting the third bedroom (that has never been used for anything except to store junk) into my office and the transition is not going as smoothly as I would like. For starters, it's a pretty small room so I've really had to look hard to find the right furniture to fit the space. We are still in search of a chair and ottoman for the corner, but otherwise I think we've found all the furniture. We gotten all the old junk cleared out of the room, but now that I'm bringing home everything from my office it's pretty full and unorganized again! The wall shelves are still sitting on the floor and need to be hung and I cannot seem to find the right cables to set up my printer. I took home all the desktop components for my computer last week and I still don't quite have all of those cords figured out either. I'll be so glad when this project is over and I'm settled again! It is amazing how much junk I have managed to accumulate in my office over the past couple of years though, and so I'm doing some major organizing so this room will have a fresh start.

Cross your fingers for the Panthers to beat the Giants this week! I'm hoping for a Super Bowl win, but taking it one week at a time....

Bobcats Game

Today Patrick called me from work and mentioned that somebody offered us tickets to tonight's Bobcats game. I'm not a huge NBA fan, but seeing a game in person is always a good time, so I thought it would be fun. I'm so glad we went - we were sitting courtside in fourth row seats. It was incredible! (Now I have to mention that a few weekends ago when I was in Asheville Patrick scored floor seats, directly under the goal so these weren't quite the same, but these were still awesome seats!)

The Bobcats were playing Cleveland so we got to see a lot of Lebron James up close and personal which was pretty cool. I know that the NBA is full of outstanding athletes, but he was in a class by himself. But the best part of the game came from who we were sitting with....Richard Marshall (of the Carolina Panthers) was sitting in the seat directly in front of me. Julius Peppers (if you you don't know who he is, you are in desperate need of an NFL wakeup call!) walked right by us to get to his floor seats and we saw Thomas Davis (again of the Carolina Panthers) walk by us to get to his seat too. But the absolute best part of the game came about midway through when.....Ken Lucas walked in and sat directly in front of Richard Marshall. Ken Lucas is my absolute favorite player and I have his jersey. He was sitting two rows from me, directly in front of me. Wow!!

I'm hoping this is a good sign for the game on Monday night. We're going to the Panthers game, and it is going to be a big deal game. First of all, it's Monday night football. Second, we're playing a division game against the Tampa Bay Bucs. Third, we are tied with them at 9-3 for control over our division. Fourth, if we win this game we will be in the lead for our division and looking pretty good to secure a spot in the playoffs. (Right now they have the tiebreaker and therefore lead the NFC South, but only the Giants have a better record than us in the NFC so we're looking pretty good for one of the two wildcard spots.) However, if we win on Monday it will be huge. Or should I say, when we win on Monday?!?!

So I know that was a lot about the Panthers in a post that's supposed to be about the Bobcats, but seeing so many Panthers absolutely made my night! (Oh, and the size of the diamond earrings all the players had, and the diamond watch that Peppers had on were all truly a sight to behold. These guys have some serious taste in jewelry!)

It was an awesome night and now I'm even more excited about Monday night!

The Duke Dream Comes True

I have been a fan of the Duke Blue Devils since the day my family moved to North Carolina. It has always been a dream of mine to see them play a home game in the legendary Cameron Indoor Stadium. I have been fortunate enough to see them play a few times in Charlotte, but I have always dreamed of seeing them play at home. In middle school I discovered the greatest college basketball player of all time - Bobby Hurley. The day after Thanksgiving Patrick and I got to go see Duke play at home (along with our friends Alli and Steve) and I was able to fulfill my other lifelong dream. (If you want to read about the first, see my posts about my devotion to New Kids on the Block!)

The experience was incredible, and I think pictures will tell the story far better than I ever could with words. Now that I have managed to accomplish my two greatest dreams (you can laugh, it's okay!) I'm going to have to come up with some new dreams. Here's hoping it won't take 20 years for these to come true though!

Duke campus

Patrick & I at the infamous Krzyzewskiville


Alli and I can't believe we're here!!


The man, the myth, the legend - Coach K


3 national championships...and counting


The Cameron Crazies in full effect


My favorite player ever


Yes, we stayed until well after the game was done


Here begins my Bobby Hurley quest...


His jersey and the ball from his record setting 1,039th assist

Need I say more?!

The best game of all time

The trophies...there's definitely room for more!

Cameron Indoor Stadium