Week 3 - taking a pass on this week

There are many, many reasons why Dad and I are taking a pass on this week.  Believe it or not, we do seem to stay pretty busy during the week.  I worked 2 1/2 days this week and Dad had 5 meetings this week.  He is on a committee arranging for Steel Magnolia to play a concert in Charleston October 1.  Josh Jones, the male member of the group went to Charleston High School and wants to perform here and give the proceeds back to the school.  He is also chairing a committee to organize two panel discussions to be held at Eastern in September on The Arab Uprising and Arab and the Outside World.  The Iraqi ambassador to the United States as well as many other local and foreign people will be part of the panels.  He is also working with a group to organize the second annual Run for the Fallen, a walk/run event held at the High School track to honor the soldiers who have lost their lives in the war on terror.

We celebrated Jordan's 9th birthday and then again when Juan arrived.  Then a third time at Morton Park on Thursday with 14 other boys.  Dad took the whole day Wednesday and drove to Dahinda to spend the day with his parents.  He brought them lunch, but Grandma baked a cherry pie for him and it was warm, served with ice cream when he got there.  Yum!  Tuesday evening we all went to see the last Harry Potter movie.  Heather and the boys had already seen it, but went again so Juan, Dad and I could see it also.  It was great.  I have read all the books, but it makes me want to reread them all again. 

The the main reason we have decided to take a pass on this week is because of Tito.  Besides being more confused and having trouble with his eyesight and hearing, he has arthritis in his lower back and it started to affect his back legs.  The past 3 or 4 days, he has been falling and then can't get back up.  We have to pull on his collar to help him.  Once he is up, he can walk a few minutes before the back legs give out again and he just sits down on them.  We went to the vet Friday and she inserted a port in his right front leg and gave him an injection of Prednisone.  This will help wth the pain and the swelling.  She sent us home with 4 more syringes to be used once a day for the next 4 days.  The hope is to get him back to where he was a few weeks ago.  But he is 14 years old and has other problems.  If this works, we can buy him some more time.  If not, we will probably have him put to sleep next week.  He just doesn't enjoy life like this. 

So that is our sad story this week.  We had planned to visit a state park we had never visited before.  Dad says there is one in Marshal, IL with a nice restaurant.  We were going to walk some trails and then have some lunch; and will probably try to do that next week.  Until then, we love you all.