Aero and a Blog Update

We had a very sad start to the New Year with passing of Jake's guinea pig, Aero. Todd found her Thursday morning when he went in to check on them. Aero was the first unexpected pet death Jake has had to deal with and he took it pretty hard. It was extra sad because Luke's guniea pig, Peanut, shared a cage with her and she seemed almost as sad and out of sorts as Jake. Jake was sad for himself and for Peanut and was pretty emotional most of New Year's Day. He kept telling us he feels like he is bad luck since he had an aneurysm and now this, especially since guinea's have a life expectancy of eight years and she was only three. We tried to explain to him that unfortunately pets sometimes die and we don't know why, but it wasn't because he is bad luck. (This picture is from when Todd brought her to the hospital for a visit since Jake was really missing her.) I'm glad he had a few days to deal with it before going back to school tomorrow. He was doing a lot better today.

With the start of the new year, I've been giving a lot of thought to things I'd like to improve in my life as well as acknowledging some of things I'm doing well. Part of that has included thinking about this blog. It started off as the most efficient way I could keep people updated with Jake's progress when things were literally changing day by day. I've never been much of a writer, but trying to share Jake's story complete with all the emotions and feelings that come with successes and challenges has ended up being very therapeutic for me. I'm also very grateful to have this record of his recovery as it has happened, because if it weren't for the interest from family/friends/friends of friends, I would never have kept these good of notes for myself. I've referred back to posts from those early weeks in the hospital several times trying to remember something that happened.

As we are more in a "regular life" routine, there often isn't too much to share and I find myself trying to come up with things to write about because it's Sunday night and time to post. I will continue to post updates on Sunday night, but it will be as noteworthy things happen and not necessarily every week. We are very grateful for the amount of interest in Jake and his progress....I never expected to still be blogging a year and a half down the road. I find myself overwhelmed at times when I look at the number of people who have read a post or comments from someone when they thank me for sharing our journey and keeping them updated on Jake.

Thank you for caring about Jake and continuing to read the blog.