Sat. June 16th

For those of you who have followed our journey from the beginning, you will recall the time that we snuck Andrew out of the hospital one Sunday afternoon so that he could pet his dog, Casey.  It was the only time, of the 167 days, when Andrew got a chance to ‘play’ with his dog.  It felt like we were breaking Andrew out of the joint.  Ali drove Casey over to the hospital and, with a little cooperation from an AI duPont nurse, Chris and I unhooked Andrew for a few minutes so that he could meet Casey at the front door of the hospital.  It was probably only 5-10 minutes, but it was important to us.  Despite all of the medicines he was on, I believe he knew it was her and thus, important to him.  It was the last time that he touched Casey…until today.

Today, we gave Casey back to Andrew.  Casey lived with us pretty much her whole life and, amazingly, she lived to almost 18 years old.  Unlike Andrew, Casey lived a long life.  Sadly, though, it’s but another page that’s turned from our ‘old life’ that we loved so much.  Seemingly little things like trading in a car that we drove Andrew to soccer games and school is hard.  Replacing things in the house that Andrew sat on, played with, etc is painful.  In many ways, I want to freeze everything from our pre-2007 life when everything was so right.

Andrew, we’ve taken good care of Casey while you’ve been gone…and now it’s your turn, Buddy.  Have fun!