Esther Lou O'Brien CD RA OAP AJP, 6/1/2004 - 12/21/2015

Goodbye, sweet Esther, my heart dog

My heart is heavy with grief as I write this post, which I will launch live once Esther passes on from this life in to the next. She is laboring awfully hard for each breath as she sits next to me on the couch. I'm trying not to watch the clock as the vet will come to our home in 3 hours and end her suffering. She's gone downhill very quickly in the past 2 weeks and our efforts to save her have failed. These valiant shepherds seem not to let on that something is wrong until it's too late. She was already full of cancer when we realized she wasn't well.

Esther had a rough start. She was taken at a few weeks old with her litter mates and many other German Shepherds from an irresponsible breeder who kept the winning show dogs in the house and let the others live in squalor. Her mother was such a mess, they had to put her down. Esther and her litter mates went to a GSD rescue and we spotted her on PetFinder. I loved her right away. We had to wait a couple weeks to go back and get her until she was 8 weeks old.

This was the day we picked her up to bring her home

Her puppy shot taken at Petsmart

Esther was the salve to our grief at the time after losing Maria's precious Idgie, a lab shepherd mix. Idgie and Ruth, a beagle, were Maria's dogs that I became step-mom to when we got together and were the first dogs I had ever lived with. So Esther was our first baby together as a couple and my first dog from a puppy ever in my life.

I set about being a dog owner much like I do everything else - all in and over the top! I read all kinds of books and took Esther to puppy class at Petsmart. That first trainer said, "You'll never get that dog to get over being shy and she won't amount to much." We changed trainers and found a great one up at Fields Ertel. We took every class she offered there and then joined "The Yappy Hour" there, which was an hour every Saturday morning where a group of us dog owners got together to let the dogs play and to reinforce the tricks and training we had already done. We would off leash heel all around the store with all sorts of distractions, we taught the dogs "go around" until they would go all the way down an aisle and back up the next one to come back to us. We clicker trained and learned tricks. We did sit stays and down stays in the middle of the store and went out of sight. We cherished these Saturday mornings together. We lived down in Northside at the time so it was a 30 minute drive. Esther would lie down in the back quietly until we got there. One day I was on the phone and accidentally missed the exit. Just as I passed the exit, Esther sat bolt upright and gave me a huge Yowl! I didn't realize until then that she knew the way so well.

Esther, left, and her friend, Lucy, after an exciting romp in the mud. They had so much fun that day until bath time!

Evelyn attended the Yappy Hour, too, and told me about agility and Queen City Dog Training Club, where she was a member. I decided to try it with Esther and signed up for classes. Little did I know how that would alter the trajectory of my life. I'm so grateful for Jim and Linda who were our first agility teachers. We kept training and learning agility until we were ready to compete in AKC agility competitions.

That first agility trial was in Dayton in the barn and I remember so well. We had Queen City Dog Training Club shirts and I didn't wear mine that first competition because I was worried that we'd be an embarrassment to the club. I was so ecstatic when we pulled off our first "Q" - that's a qualifying score. We kept Q-ing our way through trials, spending 2-4 weekends a month at Agility Trials and spending 1-3 weeknights at the club training and practicing. We met so many lovely people and their wonderful companions along this journey. I can't imagine life without having been a member at QCDTC and getting to know all our friends who have become like family.

Esther wasn't fast at agility and we had a very tough time making the time limits. She was a hard worker and seemed to say, "Don't rush me - I'm getting this right." The OAP and AJP after her name are agility titles - Open Agility Preferred and Excellent Agility Jumpers with Weaves "A" Preferred. At some point during practice sessions, Esther would do a jump or 2 and then would pull me over to the door to leave the club. Some vet visits and imaging later, we realized she had osteophites on her elbows and that the jumping was causing her pain. We did some therapy, kept pain meds on hand, and upped the supplements in her food to support her joints and she's mostly done well since stopping agility.

Once we couldn't do agility anymore, we dabbled around in all sorts of other stuff. She has titles in Obedience - CD = Companion Dog; and Rally - RA = Rally Advanced. We also did some herding and tracking. She was happy to just get out and be with me for anything.

Maria put the CD title on her

In 2007 when I started working from home, Esther was our only dog who would come and sit faithfully by me all during my workday. And she's always been such a good girl Even having work phone call after phone call, not many people ever knew I had a dog in the room. I remember one day I had gone downstairs to make a hot sandwich and I set down this steaming meat and cheese filled creation on the edge of my desk to go use the restroom. As I was in the restroom, I thought, "Oh boy, that sandwich is not going to be there when I get back!" But it was and I shared some with her just for being such a good girl.

When Esther was maybe 8 or 9 mos old, I attended a therapy dog certification class at Clermont County Dog Training Club. We got halfway through the test when the administrator realized Esther was not yet 1 yr old, which I hadn't realized was a requirement. They told me they couldn't believe how mature and well behaved Esther was and that we should certainly not be deterred and they'd love to see us again after she turns a year old. We did return and get her therapy dog certification and joined TPGC - Therapy Pets of Greater Cincinnati. Most of her therapy work was done at the Veterans nursing home down in Northern Kentucky. Those guys just loved to see her. She was happy to go and get pets and share love and then about an hour in to things, she would take me to the elevator and let me know she was all done. She was always very tired after visits.

Maria's health has required numerous hospital stays over the years and I would be allowed to take Esther in to Maria at the hospital, too. Back before we had Gus, Esther and I would stay the night with Maria. Esther would lay on the couch in the hospital room and it was pretty comical the workers' reactions when they'd realize there was a dog in the room. People could knock on the door and come in and Esther wouldn't bark in the hospital. She somehow knew she wasn't supposed to bark there. The hospital workers would often get all the way to Maria's bedside before Esther would lift her head up and look at them. Some of them were rather startled but everyone agreed she was so well behaved!

Esther was also my great protector when we lived in Northside and I'd walk to pick up pizza on Friday nights. There was a possum that would come through our yard at dusk every night and Esther would go crazy barking like mad at the back door while we said, "Possum". So, if I was walking at night in Northside and didn't like the looks of someone who was nearby, I'd whisper in her ear, "Possum" and she'd act all ferocious. People would cross the street or just turn around and go the other direction.

Our other shepherd is our worry now. She and Esther were so close. I hope she doesn't mourn herself to death. 

I think Ruth, our beagle, and so many of our other pets will have been there to welcome Esther home. Can't believe half the dogs in this picture are now gone. 

For all the joy, comfort, and connections she has brought to us and others during her life, I just hate this final part where she no longer finds joy or comfort in anything despite our best efforts and where she leaves this life alone. We once had a pet psychic come to the house and she said that Esther likes her name but that she really loves the special name I have for her. She's always been my "punkin". Her sweet, expressive eyes are deep pumpkin colored and she has some pumpkin or reddish tint to the tan parts of her coat, especially up around her head. And before this past week where she's taken on a sort of "I'm sick" smell, her head at the base between her ears always smelled to me like maple syrup.

I don't know how I'll go on without my most faithful dog by my side and you'll always be my "first", sweet punkin, my heart dog forever.

If you knew Esther and have a memory to share, I'd be most grateful for you to leave it here in comments.

Avoidance

Sorry it's been such a crazy long time with no posts. I really like to post good stuff! :)

Maria went through what I think was months of treatments for her kidney rejection that really took it out of her and after some illnesses this Spring it was determined it didn't really work and they can't do anything more for her rejection. We cancelled our dream trip to Alaska that was planned for early August. It's our 15th anniversary since exchanging vows coming up in August. Her nephrologist said no-go on the trip.

Now she's having to jump a million hoops to try to get qualified for another transplant. I'd say she's 9-24 months from another transplant and we're hunkering down. She starts hemodialysis on Tuesday. The hope is to get her on peritoneal dialysis but she has a surgery she needs soon and we thought it would be silly to put in the PD catheter, then remove it for the other surgery to happen, and then put it in again.

We wound up losing 4 of our kitties in about 9 months. That was sure something we didn't think about when we got so many of them so close together. The crazy thing is we still have a kitty left!

We did legally tie the knot and are thrilled to be legal in all 50 states!

We looked and saw we were spending more money on gas than groceries and decided it was time to move closer to everything so we worked hard to get our house sale-able, wound up selling it before it listed, and we moved to Sharonville on July 1. That puts us 30 minutes closer to Maria's hospital, to Gus's therapy in Covington, KY, and to most of our friends and family who jump in and help us out.

Since there are boxes everywhere we have been applying every avoidance technique in the book to keep from working on the house. It seems it's all we've been doing for months is getting ready for this move.

So, we took Gus to Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in WV and had a great time! Gus had a week off in between therapy sessions and by the time the next session ends Maria will be on dialysis so carpe diem!

Gus is truly doing so well in so many areas. He is able to eat just about anything now without choking on different consistencies. He can self feed nearly everything, which we know is HUGE. He can even drink from a regular cup with minimal spillage. We're still perfecting that skill. He is weight bearing really well and with support will move his legs. His army crawling has gotten better and in therapy they have him working on all 4's. He's been doing 5 days a week of Conductive Education from 9 AM to 2:30 PM. It's quite a challenging workout for him and we're so proud of how hard he works.

I had this idea that if we got a pool at just the right depth, it would help take some gravity off and he could get some therapy in that way and not even know it. He has taken to the pool like crazy and loves that he can "swim" by himself! The pool I got turned out to be about 5 inches more shallow than I was hoping but we're all still loving it.

Hope you are all enjoying your summer and keeping cool!

When no news isn't good news

I've been holding off posting with the hope we would have some good news. It's been more than a month now since we found out Maria was in rejection and these are the dark wearying days when the initial rush of rising to a challenge have sagged while the waves keep crashing in bigger and closer together.

So, I think a lot of our emotional disappointments have been that we were already on plan D for Summer Vacation and now we've slid back to Plan F, which is also the grade I give to Summer vacation 2014. This is my week off work for this summer. Friday night we decided to go to bed early, rise early Saturday, and head north to Paulding County, Ohio, for some fun but Maria didn't sleep much and was in so much pain Saturday morning that we spent many hours debating whether she should go right back to the hospital or not. She had just been released after spending Wed to Fri there last week. Ultimately, after speaking to her nephrologist, we decided to stay home and just drug her heavily, which got her over the hump. We were both fully disheartened after speaking to the doc as this is the guy we'd been waiting eagerly for to come back from his convention. I think we were both hoping he would return, review the chart, and have some brilliant insights and devise a great plan for getting her well. Instead, he was more of the tone that gee, they've run every test and checked things out, what more did we expect?

Sunday we drove up to just shy of Cleveland for a viewing and funeral. We spent the night and had a nice swim and ate inside an Ohio Buckeye's themed train before heading home. Bonus - it was all fully wheelchair accessible!

http://buckeyeexpressdiner.com/

We have another kitty, Celeste, going downhill. (We just lost a kitty 2 mos ago.) She'd had surgery Friday for an abscessed tooth so we picked her up Monday as we got back in to town.

Maria had to run out to get her blood drawn Tuesday morning so I got up with Gus and had a great plan for the day! Knock out Celeste's home care, feed and bathe Gus and me, pick up the house before Maria gets home, run a few errands together, and have plenty of time to take in the Red's game that evening! Reclaim the week!!!

Well, an hour in to trying to care for Celeste I am pretty sure I have not done anything right, she's bitten my index finger piercing through the nail bed from the top and another puncture on the pad, and I have wet cat food slung from one end to the other of my kitchen, all the while dealing with Gus whining and complaining constantly because I'm caring for the cat and not him. Maria calls about this time having finished the blood draw, and I just lost it. I am so sick and tired of no one being able to figure things out for her medically and I'm utterly failing keeping any balls in the air at home.

I manage to rebound enough to slap some food on a plate for my son when Maria calls me back, this time opening up with, "Listen, Christi, you're going to have to pull yourself together. I've been in an accident."

She was sitting at a stop light when a lady in a 2014 Lexus slams in to her from behind, causing her to hit the Volvo in front of her. My dear wife, who thinks of everyone else first, is so upset at having wrecked a car that was being loaned to us by friends, gets all the way through the police report and drives the damaged car up to other friends' body shop before realizing, "Gee, I don't feel so hot." Gus and I raced out the door to meet her at the shop so at this point we hand Gus off to our friends (thank God for the Boitnott's!!!) and head back to Christ to the Emergency Dept. Her transplanted kidney is in the front right where the seat belt comes across so they needed to check out the kidney to see if everything looked okay. Christ ER now has a "quick care" section so heck, while we're there, I get a tetanus shot and antibiotics for my stupid cat bites. For Maria, they don't find anything from the ultrasound but warn her that her whiplash pain is only going to get worse. I'm not convinced her kidney is altogether well.

So, Tuesday's blood draw was for her Wednesday transplant clinic visit. This middle of the week visit is the reason we couldn't get out of town for the week so we were going to take off Thursday and Friday for Lexington, KY, to go see the Horse Park. The folks at clinic had other plans. They said, "We penciled you in for a biopsy tomorrow." We counter with, "How about Monday instead?" Well, here we sit waiting for biopsy results....

We did get to the zoo for a few hours and went to dinner at the new restaurant that one of Maria's nurses and her husband recently opened. http://www.yelp.com/biz/angelos-family-restaurant-and-bar-independence

If you are near Independence, KY - go to Angelo's!!!

Okay, so, this just in, and I finally a bit of good news to share!!! The doctor just told Maria the biopsy results show definite improvement and she doesn't need any more treatments!!! Hooray!

Now, to salvage the final days of our Summer vacation....

Frustrations in Maria's treatment

We took Maria to the hospital Tuesday for a follow up biopsy and what we thought was a quick overnight. Some people even mentioned we could probably talk the doc in to letting us go that night and not even spend the night there. How quickly things change!

The biopsy procedure itself seemed to go better than the last one. Maria didn't have much pain. She asked for medicine in advance so didn't suffer the usual nausea.

I left her Tuesday early evening with plans to come back for her the next day.

Wednesday morning she called and left me a pitiful voice message about how much pain she'd been in from cramping almost ever since I'd left the evening prior. And let me tell you - Maria is no wimp about pain but this had her curled in to the fetal position and completely miserable, which is how I found her late morning when I arrived. The doc had been there already and was saying maybe she had C-Dif and they were testing for that. Maria thought maybe her gastroparesis was rearing its ugly head. But as I started talking to the many nurses we have known so long and asking if this could be related at all to the biopsy, they were all of the opinion this could be a hematoma. Maria's assigned nurse just gave her some pills to treat the symptoms and Maria pretty much passed out after that. When I left her that afternoon for a doc appointment of my own, I didn't even wake her up knowing how often she'd be awakened anyway and that she needed rest from her awful night.

Being away from her the rest of the day yesterday my frustrations only grew. Why does modern medicine seem to just throw pills at symptoms and not treat root causes? Maria's main nephrologist who sees her at the hospital is in San Francisco for some huge international transplant convention. Why can't things get done in his absence? What is the problem with making decisions here and taking action? If the biopsy results are back what else are they waiting for to determine if there should be more treatments?

After a demanding work day, a frustrating day of Maria's medical stuff, and then I got an uber cranky little boy in full meltdown mode handed off to me around 6, I was just done for the day. We were in jammies and in bed by 6:30 PM last night and even then it was another 90 minutes of fussing and screaming before we both got to sleep.

But, today's a new day! We were up early and after taking care of some work stuff, I thought I had an early enough start to get to the hospital and see the doctor but I missed him. There was at least some news and a little progress.

The biopsy shows improvement over the one from a little more than 2 weeks prior but it still shows cellular rejection and her antibodies are still too high, though improved. They do want to do more treatments and they actually started more thymo last night. What I didn't fully realize and learned today is that the plasmapheresis takes the thymo out of her blood so they have to be careful about when they do that. And, the antibodies can have more opportunity to attack the kidney as a result of the thymo. So, being in both forms of rejection is really pretty tough given that the therapies for each combat each other. Ugh!

This afternoon the doctor called her and here's the plan for now: No more thymo after last night. Plasmapheresis tonight and Monday, which pairs with the cancer drugs, too. She has a clinic (kidney transplant clinic) visit for Monday. I just pray that her normal Doc is back from CA and sees her on Monday to make sure all of these decisions are solid!

So far they aren't talking about another biopsy, though I would think another is in her future...?

We appreciate your continued prayers, thoughts, and support!

And here's the picture worth a thousand words as to what the stress of a sick mama and the hard work of going to Conductive Ed 5 days a week has on a 3 year old!

Another biopsy tomorrow

Time will tell its tale after we get results from a biopsy that is being done Tuesday morning. We should know about the cellular rejection tomorrow by end of day and about how the kidney is holding up with the high antibodies by end of day Wed.

Maria had another treatment today - plasmapheresis, solumedrol, and the chemo drug. It sure does take it out of her. And her poor arm where her shunt is being accessed is very swollen and bruised. She's not allowed to lift over 5 lbs with that arm. You don't realize all the things you lift in a day over 5 lbs with your dominant arm until you aren't supposed to do it! Add having a disabled toddler in the house and well, you get the idea.

She has been an absolute champ considering the high doses of steroids she's been getting! I would be crawling the walls and taking everyone's heads off!

We leave early in the morning for the hospital. I'll post results as they come in.

Thank you as always for your continued love, prayers, and support! It surely does take a village!

Maria giving her own update - that's a good sign!

I am sorry it has taken so long to update you all on my health. The last week and a half have brought some major changes in my life. I am in rejection of my transplanted kidney but it seems as though it may be able to be saved. While in the hospital I received a series of medication of thymoglobulin and steroids to help stop the rejection. Both of which had some pretty nasty side-effects. now in addition to those treatments I am receiving apheresis dialysis to rid my body of the antibodies built up against my kidney and two more chemo drugs to keep my body from making the antibodies again. I have had two of these treatments and will have another two before having another kidney biopsy next Tuesday. Hopefully, that biopsy will come back and the rejection will have stopped. If not, I will get four more apheresis and chemo treatments. I am pretty wiped out and sick to my stomach on treatment days but feel better by the next morning. I am encouraged that everything is working the way it should because my numbers are coming down closer to normal. I am not there yet but I have a lot of hope. I can not tell you how much your prayers and comments have helped. I am so grateful for all of you in my life. Please keep praying that my kidney can be saved and things can return to normal. Thank you again.

Turning a corner?

Today's news was all much more positive!

The doctor who saw her today thought that the treatment is already showing signs of working and stopping the rejection! I try not to think about the damage the kidney has suffered in the meantime and the years it takes off its life and just be grateful for every day it does its job.

Because my Maria follows her own path even with her illnesses, a whole team got together today and reviewed her case. They have determined they still want to do plasmapheresis. I'm not sure when that will get scheduled - perhaps Thurs or Fri. Her central line went in today and they have decided she can get a porta cath when that comes out. That's a more permanent access so they won't have to keep doing central lines.

She is getting her thymo treatment tonight and she hasn't answered the phone so I'm thinking they had to knock her out again.

No one is speaking the d word yet - discharge. It will very likely not happen until Fri or Sat.

Meanwhile, this boy wants to be back in Mama's arms! He started back at conductive education today.