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Mark wrote:Aren't cryogenics wonderful? Maybe Bigfoot will be a roadie for the band?

Nickswitz wrote:Wow, we almost have 500 pages of people's lives on here, that's either incredibly amazing, or incredibly sad, and I haven't yet come to a decision as to which it is...

hope you've had a good summer & are looking forward to the new academic year. I wanted to share some sad news about Molly before you heard it from someone else because I know how much you loved her. Molly died unexpectedly about a month ago. I was too upset to write to you sooner or to call. She developed a rare form of immune-mediated thrombocytopenia in which her body destroyed her blood platelets much, much faster than her bone marrow could make them. She had no symptoms & was feeling fine, running around with O.D. & jumping off the dock at the lake, etc. We were at the lake one afternoon & she was doing her usual romping with O.D. & swimming out to fetch the ball we threw for her when suddenly at 2 pm she collapsed in the front yard. We immediately took her to the nearest vet. She saw 3 different doctors that same day & had lots of blood tests, IV fluids, etc. They all agreed her condition was critical & that she would not live long enough for any treatments to even begin to work. Usually, this disease, which can also affect humans --it's not contagious, it's an autoimmune disease that has no direct cause - comes on slowly. There usually are symptoms that clue you in to something being wrong but not with Molly. With the slower form, they can give prednisone to stop the immune system from attacking the blood platelets & then after 3-5 days they can give transfusions til the bone marrow makes new platelets to replace the ones destroyed. They were unable to even start the treatment because her platelets were so completely destroyed that she was massively bleeding to death internally and by evening was massively hemorrhaging externally (mouth, eyes, rectum) as well. There was no way to stop the blood loss because she had no clotting capability. The kindest choice we could make for Molly's sake was to have her put to sleep - there was no chance of recovery. We buried her up at the lake on a small hill overlooking her favorite swimming spot. We have all been so very sad - esp O.D. who can't understand why his little sister is gone. Even Kopetka has been out of sorts since Molly died. We console ourselves with the thought that at least she didn't suffer for long - from the time she collapsed until she was dead was less than 12 hours.

Though no other dog can ever fill the special place she had in all our hearts, we felt we wanted to have another dog to give our love to and to be a best buddy for O.D. & the cats who all miss Molly so much. So, we have gotten a new puppy. This one is a Goldendoodle (Golden Retriever & Standard Poodle mix.) She has the same poodle dad as Molly & O.D. so they all share a family connection. She is just 10 weeks old. She is sweet & golden colored, so we named her "Honey."

Give me a call sometime if you'd like to stop by & meet her.