Adding insult to injury!

Today's entry will have some redundancy in it but necessary to see the whole picture! Here's an unedited, in corrected copy and pasted version of a bit of a book I'm writing called Wally And Me! wally came to us in a time of need, a time when we needed someone to love and care for, we recently had buried our son Danny, and 2 months later Danny's dog, Dino was sitting on  my wife's lap when she took a gasping breath and passed away, my wife performed cpr on her reviving her once before we decided to let her join Danny in heaven. Dino was a sweet lovable dog that started howling every night after Danny's death{due to medical malpractice}.  To make matters worse, a month after Dino died my wife's cat, Mr Snooper passed away at age 18. We, especially Terry, my wife were very sad and depressed. My original idea/plan in acquiring Wally was to give terry something to do, something to keep her busy. A plan that actually worked to some extent, as wally was a real terror, always into something and due to being a victim of a puppy mill had numerous medical problems. The day we got him he seemed sick, and after that first vet visit, we found out he had a very bad case of pneumonia, Terry nursed him back to health with unbelievable 24 hour devotion, the same type of devotion and care that made her the mother of 2 well adjusted happy children. That illness lasted almost 2 months, then wally started to develop skin irritations, wally persevered all kinds of medical intervention and medications, including the injections that his mommy administered every few days. Wally was a trooper going to the vet 41 times in his short life, we were lucky to have a vet who never gave up, Charles Chase iii dvm is a hero in our book! Wally could be a terror in his youth, Dr. Chase commented many times,”take him to obedience school” we never did and Wally grew into an angel, although the one behavior he never got over was when the receptionist would call his name to see the vet, he would put all 4 legs straight out so you couldn't even pull him into the vets office, he always would relent, which was good because Wally was a big guy, topping the scales at 120 lbs. Steroids I believe not only contributed to his big size and keeping his skin condition under control, but may have played a role in his death.  unfortunately i was not ready to love and care for an animal friend, some call them pets. My biggest contribution was to hold him when mommy gave him his shots, and to be a chauffeur when they went to the vet, in fact at one of the earliest vet appointments Dr. Chase asked me to help put him on the table, I almost asked for rubber gloves. When wally was one year old his mommy, terry got very sick. it was at this point that i was forced to start taking care of him, at first i was not very happy, even mad that i had to take care of a dog. g-d works in mysterious ways, wally and i would become very good friends, unfortunately our friendship didn't get to last very long because as i said, g-d works in mysterious ways, and wally's life would wind up being way to short. The more time I spent with him the more I started to understand all that I had missed over the years, we have had dogs and cats since we were married in 1980. I also believe my indifference to our animal friends had a negative effect on our daughter Jes, she too was standoffish to our friends. Jes is a lovable, funny, intelligent college graduate who I didn't want to go through life without the benefit of knowing the love and affection that you get from our animal friends. Wally was happy and proud to do all the standard dog tricks, but excelled at a few, one was a ball game he invented. We had 2 identical yellow rubber balls, he would line them up on one side of the yard then would go to the other side and wait for me to throw them, he would bring them both back and the process would restart, if one would get lost in the leaves or go over the fence, the game stopped until both were back in play. We live along a branch of the Cooper river, there are many varieties of wildlife, including fox, deer, coyotes, beavers, birds of prey etc. Wally was exceptionally protective, any animal approaching was sent on it's way by a puffed up, barking, growling, vicious looking Wally. It was the only time he barked. G-D forbid one of us would walk near the fence at night when the animals are usually out, he would put his body between you and the fence and use his body to move you away. One evening I was talking on the cell phone, leaning against the fence, I ignored him when he tried to move me, I am pretty large myself. The next thing I felt was something pulling me from behind, when I looked, he was on his hind legs and pulling me by the hood on my jacket. He was just too much for words to describe. I forgot to mention, when my wife was better I kept making excuses to take him out, eventually having to admit I loved the big lug and wanted to be part of his life. I didn't realize that would set me up for the second biggest heart break of my life! The first heartbreak involved the loss of our son Daniel. Daniel was a special, special person, even at age 20 he never went to bed without kissing us good night and telling us he loved us. When Danny was 5 years old he was diagnosed with myestimia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, a muscular dystrophy disease. The only part of Dan's body effected was his eyes, his right eye would roll in towards his nose, the medicine he took kept that from happening 90% of the time. The medicine did have some side effects, including excessive saliva, headaches and stomach disturbances. To look at him you would never know he had a disease, he lifted weights, bowled on several leagues and had advanced belts in karate. We continually over the years asked his different doctors, ''will this effect his life span'' over and over we were told no. On September 3, 2002 Dan awoke to bluish nails and he was extremely lethargic, he immediately showed them to me and his mom, in turn I called the doctor who said to bring him over. Upon examination the doctor said it was nothing to worry about,''probably a side effect of his medicine.'' The doctor said,''Dan, go home, play with your cat and dog, get on the computer and leave your parents alone'' he then said,''he's depressed, his sister just went away to school and you need to motivate him into moving!.''So for the next few days we did what we could to motivate him, including yelling at him to get moving! That Friday I went to the same doctor for a check up, I said, ''doc, are you sure that's normal, I think he needs a hospital'' he responded in a very adamant tone, ''I am the doctor, I checked with my father{our original doctor}he agrees 100% with my diagnosis, worry about your own health and leave the doctoring to us.'' In the very early morning hours of September 9th, 2002 I found our beloved son unresponsive in his bed, I had some sort of adrenalin reaction and lifted him out of his bed, when I realized something horrible was wrong my wife and I put him back in his bed and she started screaming for me to do something, at which point I started doing cpr and at the same time sucking some kind of mucus type block out of his mouth. When the police arrived I detected a slight heartbeat, they hooked up the automatic defibrillator, which did not detect life thus no shock was given, their rules, not mine??  He was transported to the hospital where they worked on him for what felt like forever. They were able to get a heart beat and a ventilator supplied his air. After 23.5 hours it was apparent that he was totally brain dead, there was no hope and Dan died seconds after being disconnected. There are several sights I have ingrained in my mind, two of the most heartbreaking was seeing the five people it took to hold his mother down when we were told he was brain dead. The other was when his sister arrived from college at the hospital room. We only had told her that Dan was sick, when she got there and was told the reality of the situation, she dropped to her knees screaming his name. They were extremely close, Danny was her second father, her protector and her co-conspirator in many household ''crimes.'' When the time came to disconnect the life support, Dan's mother and my mother were on each side of him, they had asked to be alone with him at that time, both were extremely close to him, as all of us were. I positioned myself at the other side of the windowed door, as Dan was taking his final breaths, and his mother and grandmother started to cry, and with the tears flowing down my face I started to feel an extreme sense of rage come over me, as I started into the room I felt someone grab my arm, as I looked to my right there was a nurse that simply said, ''don't'' and I didn't!   These events I would not wish on anyone! Writers Note: Shortly after Wally's big problems started our other cat Mickey passed away at age 16! Thanks for reading! Stu