LynnF

As Mike said, thank you all so much for sharing your condolences and your experiences. It really does help to read how others have dealt with this situation and to know that eventually this pain will fade with time. Our little pup is off to rainbow bridge to play with all the other good little pups of the world. Yesterday was the hardest day of our lives. We took him last night and stayed with him until his final breath. It was very peaceful and very good for us. Came home and felt how empty the house was – it has a different aura now….so quiet and strange. Woke up in the middle of the night and not quite awake went looking for him. When I realized he wasn’t on his doggy bed or in the hallway it was tough. Went downstairs this morning and went to pat him on the couch as he is there every morning when I come down. Not there. Sat at the kitchen table looking at his picture on the computer and I swear I heard him licking his paws. I left his water dish for him and my scarf just in case he comes back for a visit. I think he will….I believe in that. Mike said that he normally sees this guy walking one golden when he leaves for work at 6:15 every morning. Said that this morning he had 2 of them. Kinda weird. We did the right thing by him. You could see how much pain he was in yesterday and yet he never let us know about it. I just feel so bad that he probably suffered for so long without complaining. He was truly the world’s best dog. My heart is pretty empty without him. We will mourn him and when the time is right, we will get another golden. Our house is just a house without a dog. That was honestly the toughest decision and the saddest day of our lives. I know I will have to do it again with another pup, but all the years of joy and happiness that Jessie brought us were worth yesterday. I wouldn’t take any of it back. I hope one day I will be able to offer some comfort to someone going through this as all of you have done for us these past few days. Thanks again.

Some of you met Jessie, so I thought I'd write a little note (and hope it helps me through this process). Our beautiful golden, Jessie, our fishing buddy, our hiking buddy, our camping buddy and our best friend in the world has cancer. This comes as a huge shock to us as we didn't ever think that his slight limp could be something this serious and he has shown no other signs. But I guess it's serious and it's advanced and the only treatment options open to us are those that will only prolong his life briefly and inhibit his ability to do the things he loves so much. So, on Saturday we will take him for one last drive in the truck (another of his favourite things) and send him off to Rainbow Bridge to meet all the other good dogs of the world. Jessie won't even make it to his 7th birthday which makes this that much more painful. We thought he'd see at least another 3 or 4 fishing seasons but it's not in the cards for him. Still so full of life, and almost out of it. Jessie - the dog with 2 "bionic" knees has been the most super pal, companion, and family member. Everyone who knew or met him loved him. And he loved them right back. His love for people was only ever topped by his love for food (and all things inedible in our worlds). His love for the outdoors was unmistakeable and unrelenting. He knew when the boat trailer was being hitched and he knew when we were heading camping. He knew when I was just going to the Starbucks down the street and he didn't care - he just wanted to go along for the ride. Someone once told Mike and I that dogs always want to be with their owners because they worry about them and want to make sure they're OK. If that's the case, Jessie was our guardian and our protector. He went everywhere with us, did everything with us and was much more than a dog. He was a beloved member of our family and he is going to be missed as much as any child would. Our hearts are full of sorrow for what the next few days will bring, but it is inevitable and to prolong the inevitable is just to prolong his pain - that he never shows or complains about. As he lies by my feet, waiting for me to get up from the keyboard, I know what he is thinking. "There's a carrot in that fridge with my name on it, and she's not gonna get down the hall without digging it out for me". Little does he know that there are more than carrots waiting for him the next few days. He will leave this Earth a happy, full pup. If you're ever down Racehorse Creek way, look for the sapling that we'll be planting in his memory this year. We'll find the single one spot that he loved the most and that represents his love for that area and we'll mark it Jessie's tree so that we may visit it (and him) and watch it grow throughout the years. I can't imagine when or how the pain in my soul will ever go away, but I hope that one day I can look at the many pictures of our wonderful buddy and be able to smile because of the fondness of our memories of him and not shed a tear. He will be missed terribly by Mike, Hayden and myself.

My husband lived in Kamloops for 13 years (B.C. his whole life) and knew nothing but lake fishing when he left there. He taught himself (and me) how to fish rivers and, quite honestly, he's told me that fishing lakes for him now doesn't hold the same appeal or challenge. My advice to you upon your move to our fair province? Put away your Uboat for a bit and explore some of the finest rivers you'll ever fish. That's what we do here in Alberta and it's a blast! Besides...you got lots of folks on this board who'd be willing to show ya the ropes. You won't regret considering it - trust me

wow...the hoofin' business must have been lucrative this winter. I guess you're buying the drinks next time then eh? Kidding....nice rod. Fishing that is.

Man I wish they'd invent some new blonde jokes so I don't have to read the same bad ones over and over and over again

HOLY CRAP! I didn't even know that was TM!!!!

Penguins smell bad. So do most of the fishermen I know But penguins are cute. Just like some of the fishermen I know I believe in global warming. I met up with Al Gore last week and I've joined his fundraising team. Him, David Suzuki and I are having a big meeting next month. I'm inviting Clive to be a guest speaker. It will be a no-guns-allowed event. Sorry Clive - it's 2 hours past the cocktail hour and I'm feeling a little wiley

Of course we care LS Glad you're having fun sailing the high seas of Europe. Better hurry back - the boat is about to go out for the inaugural voyage of 2008 on the Bow!!!

Sorry that we missed it....sounds like we missed a fun time. There's always next time though! Congrats on raising all that money and a good event - awesome to hear!

I have a Blackberry Pearl (pink, natch) and I love it too. The phone reception is 100 times better than what I had with the Mike phone. Never drops calls, coverage area is way better than my son's Rogers phone. I have the unlimited web and email. IMHO...if you're going to go email, really be careful that you won't go over your plan if you don't go unlimited. Otherwise your bills are gonna be huge. I have a myfaves30 plan plus unlimited web and email and it only costs me $75/month. Only thing I don't like is that when I travel there are no plans for your email and web to cut down on the roaming charges like you can with your phone service.

Oh Ed...why didn't you take me with you? PDC is my FAVOURITE place on Earth!!! Have a mojito or 12 for me. And make sure you take some fishy pics if (when!) you catch something. BTW...the Flames are as hot as the Mexican weather.

Seriously.....and I don't care who you vote for....tell me this isn't a team that doesn't deserve to go on past round one. I love it. Joseph wiping away tears. Nolan getting the winner. The two "old" guys pull it out for the Flames. Fantastic.

I just woke up the sleeping men in my house Unreal....Flames deserve this win.

Flames kick ass at come-from-behind hockey. And ain't no way you can blame the last 2 goals on Kipper. I feel sorry for him - guy stands on his head game after game and his team consistently lets him down in the zone. That being said, the best thing Keenan did this game was pull him. He was clearly rattled (rightfully so!) and, even if you don't believe he's the answer, Joseph is playing rock solid and his head is in the game. Oh ya...****ENEH.....3-3. That's our Flames baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little optimistic on 2009 there aren't ya Darren?

I also heard that they tried to second him to Kentucky

Good stuff Al - thanks for checking and letting us know!

They got all the rain last spring Dave....took forever for us to get out working there due to the mush. I think Red Deer is a good place for it. Good snow pack is fine and dandy, but if you go all of July with no rainfall, you're still back at square one with fire bans, closures and low stream flows.....like last year.

I'm with ya there Birchy. I'm still sitting at my kitchen table playing Scrabble, waiting to leave for work. I think it might just be a snow day. Snow day on April 10th -- effing ridiculous. If this turns to rain/thundershowers later today as they DID predict, watch what happens to the river....

I thought my heart was gonna leap out of my chest the last minute of that game. Little too close. Kipper was truly the star, but the Flames were super aggressive out there and deserve some props - they know better than to try and outskill the Sharks and got the job done. So let 'em keep doing what they're doing and I look forward to some people eatin' some crow here. That being said, I'm gonna predict that the game they will lose this series will be tonight's. If they prove me wrong and come out swinging two nights in a row, then I think there's a reasonable expectation they'll make it to round 2.

and prw.un But I'm gonna give the drinking thing a try and I'll let y'all know how it works out for me.

Well...I personally couldn't think of a better way to spend an anniversary. But then again, your wife may not be as passionate about camping, fishing and drinking as I am. So.....tell her I'll bring a really good bottle of red for her and make it worth her while to show up

Thanks, Al, for pointing me here. If our trailer is out of storage, I might be able to talk the old guy into coming. Therefore: Taco - we'll bring the rum Lady - I'll be mixing Martini's Al - I'll stock some Drambuie (ever had the homemade stuff...outstanding!) Everyone else: We've got a couple of pontoon boats and fins that we could bring if anyone needed some. Sounds like a fun time.....

This is a true story – written by me, experienced by me. Today - one of the longest days I can remember. Today I found out that a good friend is going to die. Leanne is 32 years old, is a single mom to a 7 year old boy and a 5 year old girl and has terminal pancreatic cancer. She is the funniest, liveliest, bubbliest, most optimistic person I know. Even in the face of major surgery this morning she had her sense of humour about her telling everyone that she was going under the knife to get her tooma removed (in her best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice). This nightmare began a few short weeks ago when she got admitted to hospital with severe diabetic related blood sugar problems she knew nothing about (her blood sugar peaked at 452). She was so jaundiced that she couldn’t see. Yet she still found a way to hit on the male orderly. She got rushed into emergency surgery to have a stent put into her liver and that cured her, temporarily, of many things. After a week of being in hospital she fought to get released so she could get home to her children who were being looked after by a work associate’s mother. Her parents had yet to fly in from Nevada. That was 2 weeks ago. Since then, her parents have flown out and she has been to see a surgeon who told her what was going to happen. What they hoped was going to happen. He told her that he would operate and either remove the tumour entirely or, if they couldn’t do that, remove part of it and then she would recuperate for 6 weeks and then go to Seattle for another 6 weeks for chemotherapy. She lives in Vancouver, Washington right now so that would mean 6 more weeks away from her “babies” as she calls them. That, however, is not how things happened today. Despite all of the hope and optimism and prayers, she was told today she was going to die. When they opened her up in the operating room, they found the cancer to be so bad that they just closed her back up. The size of a normal pancreatic tumour is, apparently, the size of a pea. Hers was the size of a golf ball. They think she’s had this cancer for over 3 years now. They told her she’d have 2 months to live with no chemotherapy and 6-12 months to live if she did some treatment. How does one decide what to do when given those options? My eyes have not been dry since I heard the news. My heart aches for her and her babies and how the world will lose her spirit and her children will grow up without their mother. I wonder what will happen to them as there are issues with the father. Children should not be without their mothers to raise them. Women should not die when they’re just 32. Especially women like Leanne. I haven’t mentioned this, but I’ve never met Leanne. I’ve talked to her a lot by email, on the phone and on another bulletin board we belong to. I’ve “known” her for over 4 years and, despite the fact that we only met in the virtual world, I consider her a dear, good friend who I am heartbroken for. The power of internet friendships should not be understated. I will be booking a plane ticket to see her because I feel I must. I will share my tears with her, my condolences and my sympathies. I will also share a lot of laughs with her because she will still have that in her despite the knowledge of her fate. I will honour her by reflecting on my own life and the many blessings and good fortunes I have – ones that she will not live long enough to experience for herself. I know you don’t know my friend Leanne but please say an extra prayer for her children tonight and honour her by making someone laugh, doing something kind for someone or by simply appreciating the gift of good health and prosperity that you have – even if you had thought you don’t. Lynn

Oh Clive....time to leave your basement. I almost chucked when I saw that