Intentional Thinking

 It has seems that February has brought me many moments in which I need to stop, breathe, and remember to be intentionally thankful. I would say most days I wake up and am grateful for the life I live and the things I have but I also have a lot of days I wake up and take everything I have for granted. Then are the few days that stop me in my tracks and make me realize just how much I have and how incredibly thankful I am, I had some of those days last week. Both dogs have pretty serious health issues and most days I take for granted that fact that we are able to provide them with the daily medications they need to survive. Last Monday I woke up in the middle of the night to find Stan curled up in bed next to me shivering. I tried everything to warm him up and nothing seemed to help so I put him in bed under the covers right next to me and we snuggled the rest of the night. This happened every single night last week, he just could not keep his body temperature up and was becoming freezing ice cold after being asleep for a few hours. I ended up having to turn the heat up about 12-15 degrees and he had to wear one of my sweatshirts to be able to stop shivering. I of course called the vet and made him an emergency appointment, we are pretty well known there and they go above and beyond for us and ended up staying about an hour and 45 minutes after closing just so Stan could have plenty of snuggles and I could have one on one conversation with the vet about how to help him. She recommended a lot of tests to run and of course I did them. This is one of the moments when I just have to stop and pray and be intentionally thankful. Kevin and I are able to rush our dogs to the vet and run the necessary tests to help them at a moments notice. We can afford the proper care they need. We can afford to give them the life they deserve. I have recently read a lot of stories about owners who can't afford proper care and end up having to rehome their dogs or worse make them suffer and I am so thankful we aren't faced with those choices. Stan is doing fine and we have been able to turn the heat back down and take his sweatshirt off of him. He does go in later this week for a doggie ekg so I'll keep you posted on how he does.