Hobbie Update

So on Saturday I took Hobbie to the VCA animal hospital to be checked out. I am grateful that they worked me in but unfortunately I am not really all the happy about the care. So they wanted me to take him to a 24 hour clinic, so I called Julie and she talked to her boss Dr. Craig and he wanted Hobbie to come there so they could look at him. I love this office, all of the people there are super nice, and they all love Hobbie. So Dr. Craig takes a look at him after a tramatic ride to Noblesville. The put an IV in and gave him some meds to help with the puking, and now he is doing well again. Best guess is that he had a bug that got him since his immune system is down due to chemo. He was supposed to have his chemo treatment today but I think that is going to be done on Wednesday. So for those of you that are concerned about Hobbie, he is doing good again and next time I will just drive him to Indy instead of going some place else. Thank you very much Parkside Animal Hospital.

Happy note!

On a happier note, I am an aunt again. My brother and his girlfriend, Denise, had a little baby girl yesterday. They named her Paizley Jane. She is a cutie. New babies are wonderful. Can't wait to get to know her and watch her grow up.

All about Hobbie

I know that many people reading this blog may never know our kitty, Hobbie, but he is a pretty special cat. The story of Hobbie begins like this...One summer about 14 years ago Craig and his mom and dad went on vacation, since there has always been pets on the "farm" so Craig's sister Julie was watching the house for her mom and dad while they were gone. So this little yellow kitten shows up at the house, well if you know anything about Julie she is a sucker for strays. Dogs, cats, pidgeons, pigs, you name it, she saves it. So she names the cat "Hobbie" as in a hobo cat and he is there to stay. Well, Hobbie loves Craig, so when Craig and I got married and moved into our house, we decided that he would come and live with us. He adapted very well...he didn't miss his little cat friends at Craig's parents house. So continues the life of Hobbie. Along came Keagan and we wondered how Hobbie would do with a little baby that would soon turn into a little toddler that would chase after him(Hobbie HATES being chased by little kids). Hobbie surprised us when we brought Keagan home, you should have seen him the first time that we gave Keagan a sponge bath, Keagan screamed the whole time and Hobbie was frantic, trying to get up to Keagan to see what was wrong. Keagan and Hobbie are friends now, though even Keagan can't chase him. So as I have said in posts before, the end of May we found out that Hobbie had a tumor on his neck. Its a big decision to make, do you want to try and save him or let him go...well we couldn't just let him go so we took him to the best kitty surgeon and he had surgery. The tumor was malignant but chemo can help so we started him on chemo and he is supposed to go Monday for his second round but this week hasn't been so good to Hobbie. He is on a downward slide and hopefully it will start looking up. My poor husband is going to be crushed if and when something happens to Hobbie. He is already gearing himself up to have to make the decision to put him down. Hopefully that decision can be put off for a while...

Family Reunion

Before my grandpa pasted away there was a Bierma family reunion planned for July 5 in Wheatfield where my aunt Joyce works. The place is amazing, paths leading everywhere to new treasures waiting to be found. Its interesting to view such a place through a child's eyes. Keagan is fasinated with water. We can be driving anywhere and he will always point out rivers, fountains, ponds and so forth to me. So we are walking around this lets call it an estate, and there is water everwhere, with lots of fish and in one area lots of frogs. Now most of you know that several months ago Keagan had a run in with a frog that scared him half to death! For those of you that haven't heard the story here is a condensed version. My mother in law has a pond in her backyard. She has several fish that Keagan loves to feed. There are also a couple of frogs that have taken up residence in the pond. SO one day Popper(Craig's dad) and Keagan are outside feeding the fish when Popper reaches down and picks up one of the frogs to show it to Keagan, the frog jumps out of Popper's hand, right at Keagan, whom is trying to get away and falling down at the same time. Keagan is now terrified that the frog is after him. Its very cute to watch him make his body shake the way he did that day. So now depending on the day, he might be afraid of the frogs or liking them. SO on this particular day he isn't so afraid of the frogs which is a good thing cause the one pond we came across had about 30 frogs in it. So anyway, here we are at this family reunion, with I have to admit, a bunch of people that I don't know. But we had fun anyway. Keagan spent about an hour jumping off the diving board to me. I think that he could have done this for hours but mommy couldn't have. My legs were kinda sore the next day, I am not in the best shape.
I am getting better, its probably a good thing, now every time we go swimming Keagan jumps in time after time and which is good exercise for my legs. I know he is only trying to help.
My mom has pictures of him jumping in, I will post as soon as I can download them to my computer.

continuation of last blog

some of the first entry got lost so here it is...

We ended up having a great time in Minnesota. Hobbie is doing well, although he is really skinny now. He has started chemo not to cure him but to hopefully prolong is life. We are all ready to go back to Minnesota, Craig just wants to move there. If you ask Keagan where he wants to go he will tell you Minnesota.

SO It Begins

So bear with me as I start this silly thing. Life has been crazy around this house for a couple of months. We always start out the new year wishing it was June already and time for vacation. This year was no different especially with Craig, I think that its the hardest for him because he works so many more hours in a week than I do. So the months flew by and as May's end approached Craig told me one more time that we needed to get the kitty in for a checkup. SO here is an overview of what the two weeks leading up to vacation were like in the Plantenga household...

1. Friday May 23: I take Hobbie to the vets office and we find a tumor on his neck that the vet wants to biopsy. We just want it taken off and she assures us that if she can do that she will.


2. Thursday May 29: Hobbie goes in for surgery, I get a phone call about 3 pm from the vet that she can't do anything with the tumor and we need to take him to a kitty surgeon to have it removed. I call Craig in tears and then call Julie who tells me to do the surgery. So I go pick Hobbie up from the vets office, call Julie and ask her who she would recommend(just in case you don't know my sister-in-law is a vet tech in Noblesville), she calls and gets us in with the best kitty surgeon in Indy.


3. Friday May 30: Craig and I drive to Indy to meet with the kitty surgeon, he informs us that he believes that he can remove the tumor and we agree to have him do the surgery. We leave Hobbie at the clinic to await his surgery on Monday. Only one more week until we leave.


4. Monday June 2: Hobbie's surgery goes well, the tumor is more extensive than Dr. Stephan thought but he was able to get the whole thing( in case I didn't mention this before the tumor was on Hobbie's neck). He is out of surgery and doing fine.


5. Tuesday June 3:my wonderful sister-in-law picks Hobbie up from the vet clinic and takes him to her clinic where Hobbie will be residing while we are on vacation so that he being looked after while we are gone incase something should happen. (God Bless the staff at Parkside Animal Hospital in Noblesville.)


6. Wednesday June 4: Craig, Keagan and I drive down and visit with Hobbie for a little while before we leave. He looked so pitiful but at least he is still alive and starting to do a little better.


7. Thursday June 5: Gearing up to leave tomorrow... I am getting off around 2 to finish last minute vacation things. I get a phone call at work...my grandpa just passed away somewhat unexpectedly. Can I just say at this point I just wanted to crawl into a hole and scream my head off. So I leave work...go pick up Keagan from daycare, I had to wake him up and the poor guy was just so confused, and I drive up to my grandma's house in DeMotte. I spent a couple hours up there with my family before going home to get ready to go on vacation. Parts of me now wish that I would have stayed for his funeral but I didn't and will regret that. I will miss him very much.


8. So onward... Friday June 6: We leave for Minnesota about 7:30 am with my Inlaws. We just happen to meet up with Julie and Kyle on the road in Illinois. During our first stop Steve(my father-in-law) has a flat tire so they change it and we get back on the road. Then the other tire blows out while driving 70 mph on the interstate. No damage done. We finally make it to our hotel for the night. The rest of the trip was good.


9. June 7-20: We had a great vacation. Keagan liked fishing and especially likes playing on the beach with daddy, Kaleb, Korey and uncle Kyle.

You know for a while I thought that I was doomed.