This was my first loss of a loved one and it’s been overwhelmingly the saddest event of my life.  Aside from the suddenness of the loss that pretty much shocked me into a state of complete numbness, I didn’t know what to do or think.  It was as if my brain went into an endless loop trying to process what it meant when the vet on the phone told me that Buddy had passed away.  The obvious questions that my brain expected to ask the vet that morning like “how is he doing now?  how did the antibiotics work?  when can I pick him up to take him home?” ran through my head but my head didn’t come back with the different possible answers to expect back from such questions like it normally would.

The biggest obstacle for my bereavement was (and still is) all the guilt that I feel.  As much as I loved Buddy and took care of him, I could only remember the times that I took his companionship for granted; the times that maybe I punished him too harshly, the times that I didn’t play with him or was away from him because I was doing something (trivial) that I wanted to do just for myself, the times that I left him home alone for school or work.  Another obstacle of guilt comes from the thought of whether or not I would have been able to prevent the inevitable for at least a little while longer.  I have tried to play back in my head the events of the night before I took him to the emergency vet and asked myself why I hadn’t taken him in sooner or have tried to think back to figure out how the infection may have started.  This is all compounded by the guilt of not being there with Buddy at the end because maybe he was trying to wait for me but just couldn’t hold out any longer or maybe he thought I gave him up to “strangers” because he was sick.  All these guilty thoughts swirl in my head and I had trouble recollecting the joyful memories of Buddy.

After almost thirteen years of Buddy being by my side and with my family, I’ve never felt alone.  There wasn’t a day when Buddy was with me where I felt bored or useless.  Now that Buddy has moved on, I feel like there is absolutely nothing for me to do except miss not only the physical presence but also miss the spirit of Buddy.  Pets, in general, just have a special innate ability to love and understand you without speaking and without language.  They don’t have ulterior motives; they don’t get self-conscious; they just love unconditionally.  That is their nature.  It’s difficult not to love back and start leaning on this bond.  Guardians of pets understand this bond and it is this bond that makes us grieve.

As is typical of me, when I face an obstacle that I am not familiar with, I do a lot of research and reading to try to get a handle on it.  I’ve been to bookstores and also the library to read books on coping with the loss of a pet and not surprisingly, there are quite a few books on the subject.  I’ve also read quite a few articles online.  At first, it was hard to imagine anyone else in the world feeling this much sadness and guilt but after some research, I’ve come to the understanding that I am not alone in what I feel.  This has brought me some comfort to realize I am not the only one that’s lost this bond.

Guilt is both a terrible and just thing.  Guilt is terrible because it has a way to make you think you had control of something that is not possible to control.  Guilt is also just because it can force you to accept responsibility for things that you did control.  I feel both kinds of guilt for various things I did or didn’t do that I shouldn’t have or should have done.  The problem with guilt is that it is a regret of something in the past and there is no way to go back and change anything.  Some have suggested that I push the guilty thoughts out of my head and think of the better memories.  However, that is easier said than done and regardless, I felt that does not do justice or help alleviate the guilt.  Whether the guilt be real or imagined, I feel the need to accept the guilt and take responsibility for it.  I read in one of the coping books that feeling guilt is part of the grieving process and that there is no way to get past the guilt without eventually learning to forgive yourself.  This is a difficult task but by accepting the guilt and taking responsibility for them, it will become easier to forgive myself rather than trying to ignore the guilt.

My research also helped me realize the typical stigma of fearing death.  Death is a natural thing as is birth.  Everyone and everything will die.  I don’t know what is after life and no one knows even if they pretend to know.  There are various beliefs regarding the afterlife.  What I believe in my heart is that life in itself is very profound.  Nothing that is part of nature is wasted and everything is conserved.  Because life is part of nature, I find it hard to believe that life is not conserved in some different but still profound way that we just don’t understand.

I rarely write to this blog anymore; however, I am posting this because I know there are a lot of people out there that are feeling or felt the same way I am and grieving like me.  I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone and that grieving is normal regardless of what others that just don’t understand may say.  If you found this post, I have to assume that your grief is so strong that you are doing nothing but doing the same type of research that I did to try to find even a tiny amount of comfort.  I know you still love your animal companion that passed away.  I also know you blame yourself and feel the guilt and sorrow.  I know I do.

Thanks for all the unconditional love, Buddy. I’m sorry for all the things I did wrong.  I love you and always will.

On Thursday July 8th, I came home from work and as usual, as soon as he smelled me, he tried to run around and find his fluffy toy.  This is what he always does when I get home.  I held him and kissed him to tell him I was home and put him down where he could feel the toy.  He started playing with it and kicked it around until he couldn’t find it anymore.  He smelled the area around him to try to find it but it was out of his reach so I grabbed it and tossed it to his feet. When he calmed down a bit, he sat down and had a bit of a coughing fit that lasted about 5 seconds except with the last cough he coughed up a white foamy liquid.  He also seemed to have fluid in his lungs as I could hear gurgling when he was breathing.  I wish I recognized this as the warning to take him to the vet then and there.  For some reason, he doesn’t seem to drink his water when he is home alone.  I know this because his water is about the same level I had left it in the morning and he gulps down water when I get home.  He knows how to find the water bowl and does normally when I am at home.  So I knew he hadn’t drank in a while so I refilled his water bowl with some fresh water and he gulped some down.  Eventually, he realized it was time for dinner.  He heard me preparing his dinner and was excited so walked around the living room in a circle at a surprising pace, trying to hear and smell the food in anticipation.  Sometimes he would whine or yelp telling me to hurry up.  As he gulped down his food, I prepared his insulin and gave him his shot as he was licking his finished dinner bowl.  He seemed a little out of breath but other then that he seemed fine.

I lay him down on my lap in front of my computer as it is our routine after dinner.  He started sleeping on my lap.  When my lap gets too warm, he gets up and I move him to the bed.  The bed got too warm for him as well so I put him down to sleep on the floor and he napped for about an hour.  At this point, I realized he was breathing with his mouth open, as dogs often do when they are trying to cool down.  The room was not warm and he usually can cool down quickly on the floor so that was unusual.  Around 1AM Friday morning, I was getting ready for bed.  Buddy found his pee pads and did both of his business quite normally.  Buddy alternated from breathing with his mouth open and breathing normally although his breathing seemed unusually shallow and quick.  He wasn’t moving around normally and he would only take a couple licks of water when I put his water bowl under his chin whereas he would normally gulp it down to cool off before laying sideways to sleep.  Oddly, he had his neck extended as if he was smelling something in the air except he wasn’t smelling anything at all.  I put him on the bed and we slept for a little while.

At 4AM Friday morning, I woke up to Buddy having another coughing fit.  I felt his chest and I could feel his heart was beating really hard and fast and he had very labored and shallow breathing still with his neck extended.  I turned the lights on and realized he had coughed up more of the white foamy substance.  I tried to give him a little bit of his food because he would normally eat at any given day and time.  He refused.  At this point I feared that there is something very serious wrong.  I called the emergency clinic and soon took him there.  The ER vet said that he was having difficulty breathing by himself so they placed him in oxygen so he could breath easily.  They were trying to get some blood from him to see if he would be able to take Furosemide (which has a side-effect on the kidneys) but they feared that at his excited state, he could collapse if they tried too hard to restrain him for blood.  I asked if it was possible for me to hold him to help him calm down because I couldn’t imagine what Buddy would be thinking and acting being handled by complete strangers.  They recommended no because he could collapse and they didn’t want me to see that and feared what I would do if that were to happen.  Eventually, they were able to draw some blood and found his kidney levels were slightly elevated but recommended to give him the diuretic anyway.  Then they took some x-rays and sent the x-rays off to third party radiologists for review.   The first diagnosis after several radiographs was congenitive heart failure.  The ER vet told me she also suspected pneumonia but he didn’t have a fever so CHF was the most likely issue.  I was told to leave him there until the internal medicine specialists came in during normal business hours.  I was told Buddy was resting somewhat comfortably although he still was in a critical state.

Before I left, I was able to see him around 9AM in the oxygen box, he was on his stomach and seemed to be sleeping or just resting (his face was turned away from the front).  They didn’t want to excite him so didn’t allow me to put my hand in or hold him. I went home with tears streaming down my face… I had never seen Buddy in such a bad condition and it was horrifying to leave him at a place he probably hated the most.  At this point, I was just waiting to hear back from an internist.

Later that day, I got a call from the internist.  The internal medicine vet said an ultrasound of his heart showed that it was relatively normal size and functioning normally so it was not CHF but they suspected it was pneumonia so were going to give him some antibiotics and recommended he stay there for 3-4 days to see how he did.  The vet sounded optimistic but said Buddy is “not out of the woods yet”.  At this point, I felt a little relieved because I believed there was still hope because their recommendation for him to stay there for 3-4 days meant that he would be fine during those days and also pneumonia was something that could be treated and fought.  Later in the day, I wondered about how Buddy would be fed and his diabetes treated during this whole time since dogs do not react well to sudden diet switches.  I called and they said I could drop off his food and insulin.  Around 8PM, I went over to drop off his food, insulin, and eye drops he was prescribed several weeks ago for inflammation.  They allowed me to see him.  He was wrapped around in a blanket because the tech said his temperature was a little low.  I let him smell my hand to let him know that I was there and pet him.  It took him a minute but he lifted up his head and smelled around.  I hope that was a sign that he recognized me but soon put his head back down.  The tech said that he ate food around 4PM.  I asked if he was still having trouble breathing by himself and the tech said that she tried to walk him earlier but he was getting excited and still having trouble breathing alone outside of the oxygen therapy tank.  Yet I was still very hopeful and relieved that he seemed to be doing better, certainly better than the night before.  I was optimistic for Buddy.

I was restless on Friday night and could not fall asleep.  I prayed for Buddy to get better and was hopeful that the vet would have good news the following morning.  I woke up around 8AM on Saturday but stayed in bed until  around 9AM when I got a call from the vet.  The vet said that Buddy was doing fine the night before but surprisingly collapsed that morning and had blood coming out of his nose and mouth.  They tried to resuscitate him without success.  The vet didn’t really seem to know why he collapsed.  The shock was delayed by a few minutes while I was still on the phone.  I could not believe that Buddy has passed away and I would never see him again.

I called my family that all knew and formerly lived and cared for Buddy that he had passed away at the hospital.  I agreed to let both of my sisters discuss and decide what to do.  One of my sisters and my brother-in-law came over to help me.  They were there with me when I picked him up at the hospital and took him to be cremated.  We were given his body in a cardboard box.  The weight of the box was eerily familiar.  A gentlemen coming into the hospital held open the door for us that knew said he was sorry.  I thanked him.  It was too much to hold back my tears.  I held the precious box on my lap in the car and I could feel the push and pull of the Buddy’s momentum when we stopped and accelerated.  I kissed the box a couple of times and cried some more.

At the crematorium, I was asked if I wanted a moment alone with the body.  I said yes because I wanted to say my goodbye and tell Buddy that I loved him and also to thank him for everything.  I did not want to see Buddy in that state but since I had not had a chance to say goodbye, I felt that I owed him at least that much.  I held him in my arms as I would normally and whispered my love, thanks, and goodbye in his ear and gave him a final kiss before laying him back down in peace.  Buddy was cremated alone.  I wanted his ashes.

They say that hindsight is always 20/20 but I wish that I had taken him back home the night before so that if he were to pass away, he did so with me by his side so that he would know that I would be with him to the end like I know he would be with me.  I hope that he passed away because it was his time and not because of any mistake that I or the vets made.  Maybe if I were to have taken him to the emergency clinic as soon as I saw him cough up the foam right after I came back from work…  I am very sad that he did not die as peacefully as I would have liked.  As I write this, I feel a lot of guilt because I know that there are a lot of things that I could have done better for Buddy and not being there with him when he died is only adding to my guilt.  I am truly sorry, Buddy… I should have been a better carer of you.

This is one of the saddest days of my life.  It’s the kind of sadness that makes you feel an untouchable pain and strange emptiness.  As I write this, I am still straining to hear the click-clacks of his nails on the hardwood floors.  I look over to the bed to see if he is still sleeping.  I am constantly scouring the floor looking for him.  Ever since I bought my place and lived alone with Buddy, the only thing I had to do was to take care of Buddy.  Now that he has passed away, I don’t know what to do now without him.  People have said to me before that they hated living alone.  I never felt that way but just came to the realization that I have never truly lived alone until today because Buddy was always here for me and now my place seems completely empty.  I went out to a bookstore to find a book that may help me cope with Buddy’s passing but I felt the normal urge to get back home as soon as possible to be with Buddy even though I knew he was not there.

I miss him already and will miss him always.  I will miss being able to hold him and stroke him.  I will miss his pawing telling me to rub his belly; the look of satisfaction he shows with his eyes closed when I do.  I will miss his smell.  I will miss the feeling of his warmth next to me.  I will miss his ability to keep time somehow and whine for food like an alarm clock every morning and evening.  I will miss his excitement and welcome home after work.  I will miss him sleeping soundly next to my pillow every night.

I write this as a tribute to Buddy and in his remembrance.  Buddy, I love you and will miss you.  You were my best friend and always will be my best friend.  I will never forget you.

Love,
John

Every dollar counts.  Every thoughtful gesture counts.  Every prayer counts regardless of your religious beliefs.

Also, don’t forget to check with your employer as they may provide a charitable matching gifts program.

Back to my indefinite hiatus from blogging because I didn’t get the memo that (full) blogging is now lame and you should (micro) blog in less than 140 characters per entry but at a higher frequency.

Dr. Cox: (peptalk to new residents) Each and every one of you is going to kill a patient. At some point in your residency, you will screw up, they will die, and it will be burned in your conscience forever. Now take pee pants here. He just might go get himself a good clean kill this morning seeing as his patient, Ms. Samson, is in DKA and he hasn’t been tracking her phosphate level, her phosphate level, her phosphate level.

JD: Doug! Stop writing and go!

Dr. Cox: That young man has killed so many patients I’m starting to think he just might be a government operative. The point is, the harder you study, the longer you just might be able to hold off that first kill. Other then that, I guess cross your fingers and hope that the guy you murder is a jackass with no family. Great to see you kids. All the best.

And another…

JD: Ooh, Dr. Cox- can I ask you something?

Dr. Cox: The answer is yes, it was me who saw you doing leg lifts in the gym on that inflatable ball. Quite the display of girl power. Ab-so-lutely love the leg warmers.

JD: First of all, they were just big socks. Okay? And secondly, if you need to do some laundry, here’s the washboard (lifting up scrubs to show flat abs), riiiighht?

And another…

Dr. Kelso: That young man’s father is very important.

Dr. Cox: Don’t tell me, he donated a wing.

Dr. Kelso: He donated a wing, a thigh, and a breast.

JD: Sir…

Dr. Kelso: Yes, genius, in this metaphor the hospital is a chicken.

JD: Please sir, I totally get that. (Inner monologue: How can a hospital be a chicken?)

… yes, I’ve been watching reruns of Scrubs lately.

• Not making myself accountable
• Too many segregated goals (ie. Seven Projects)
• Lack of continuity

The first two reasons are pretty much self-explanatory. I’ll need to figure out a way to make myself accountable to failing to work on some of my goals somehow but the problem is that since these are personal goals, there are no negative consequences except for maybe personal shame. I could use some ideas on this one. Second reason is that maybe I put too many things on my plate and that just overwhelms me to the point where I don’t want to work on any of it. One way I can think to fix this is to prioritize my goals carefully and work on them bottom-up. The third reason may need some more elaboration. I currently have what I consider to be a good full-time job that I consider to be rewarding in a multitude of ways and also necessary. I also have a great hobby in photography that I delve into as much as possible but not really necessary but very fun and interesting. My goals are in between these two things and I consider it rather difficult to “shift gears” between each and keep the continuity of the things I am working on.

So my initial thoughts are NOT make the same mistake I did just last year by listing out all the things I want to work on but to just keep it simple and work on goals one at a time so that at the end of 2008, I can write a totally different type of blog post that will reflect back upon things that I was able to complete instead of focusing on the things that I wasn’t.

There, I am very much looking forward to 2008.

Needless to say, the food tasted as good as it looks in the pictures. The food was… mmm mmmm good!

Was it just me or did the United Nations take its sweet time on… no, not taking action in Darfur but just deciding to take action in Darfur.  Okay, admittedly, if the Sudanese government wasn't so stubborn, things probably would have moved a lot faster but I just think the UN could have been a bit more influence if they really wanted.  I have my doubts that this will solve the problems related to the region but it certainly is a start and most importantly a sign that the world cares.

A month of use, and iPhone's not as cool

I hate to say I told you so but I told you so.  To say that the iPhone is revolutionary is simply playing into the hands of a corporation being pushed by shareholders who's only bottom-line is the financial reports.  This is not to thrash the genius that is behind the marketing team over in Cupertino, they did an amazing job hyping up a gadget that everyone will shrug off in less than a year.  What Apple will (need to) learn is that it may be easy to attract new customers with the 'shininess factor' but the shine and novelty will fade very quickly.  As John Dvorak predicted, Apple will not live through the cell phone market without implementing customer demand.  Things like modular battery and openness to third-party development will change my outlook on the iPhone but I am guessing Samsung, LG, and Nokia understand all of these already as the outstanding cell phone market leaders so I am curious to learn how Apple will fair.

Taliban Issue Another Hostage Deadline

Anyone surprised that there is yet another deadline?  Aside from the fact that these so-called intellectuals just murdered another innocent victim, it just shows how desperate they are to be in the news and try to justify their existence.  I still don't know what they are trying to prove or what message they are trying to send across.  Every single time they demand that foreigners leave their country but that is counter-productive.  Realize this… you've captured 23 pious and innocent people that decided to devote their time in reconstruction of "your" nation.  They brought no guns and ill-will against "your" country but you take these unarmed volunteers and hold them hostage?  Such cowardice is baffling – if you are going to take someone hostage, at least be brave enough to capture someone who wields a weapon, even if it's a buttering knife.  I find it amazing how stupid your group is – to think that your ultimate justification of murdering the innocent will come down to the unrighteous manipulation of a sacred religion into a morphed cult makes me think you need psychiatric help.

To the 21 hostages, my prayers are with you.  Regardless of what happens, know that your work will be remembered and treasured by the future… those who aren't even born yet while your killers will be a forgotten as a small antagonistic smear in history.

To the VT Family: A solemn prayer goes out to the victims and families of Virginia Tech.  I hope you all know the world is grieving with you for the loss and the tragedy you have to endure.  I also hope that everyone will be allowed to start the mourning process by understanding the reasoning behind all of this, if such a thing exists.

Related Links:

• Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund
• VT Memorial Site
• Georgia Tech Responds to VT Tragedy

Thankfully, this was/is not an issue for school work and work work.  Things where the responsibility of the work is not voluntary (technically assigned to me) or have a hard due date – I put a lot of effort into finishing it.  On the other hand, if the project was my idea; therefore, do not have anyone pushing me to do the work or I know there is no real date, it will be a long time before I finish.

I have found remnants of one of my projects that I have started to think about ten months ago.  It's about 15% completed and found myself interested in it.  Chances are, I will get bored of this in a few months.  If so, I am going to try to continue on with other projects in a round-robin fashion.  Theoretically, this means that at the end of this process (if there is light at the end of the tunnel of my ambition), I will end up with five different completed and ready-to-launch projects.

Anyway, if anyone else finds that you have similar issues, I am very open to suggestions.  Thanks. 

The premise is that site-authentication images increase security because customers will not enter their passwords if they do not see the correct image,” … “From the study we learned that the premise is right less than 10 percent of the time… He added: “If a bank were to ask me if they should deploy it, I would say no, wait for something better,” he said.

… the study demonstrated that site-authentication images are fundamentally flawed and, worse, might actually detract from security by giving users a false sense of confidence.

The study found that 60 out of the 67 subjects in their experiment still entered in their password even when the experimentation website did not display a sitekey at all.  Apparently, from this result, the researchers concluded that features like sitekey only gives everyone a 'false sense of confidence' because their experimental subjects neglected the security layer altogether.

Now, I certainly hope that I am not the only one here that can't make logical sense of how they went from result to conclusion.  Not to take any credit away from these researchers but by completely neglecting their conclusion and focusing on the results, the conclusion I make for myself is that people don't understand the risk of neglecting security measures such as this.  I think that instead of degrading such features and recommending institutions to "wait for something better," researchers either need to find how best to make people aware of security risks and/or find that "something better" that will resolve this issue altogether (if there is such a thing).  It is as if the study was about one problem with two variables but on the other side of the equation, the 'solution' only refers to a single variable.  Meaning?  It's not a flaw in such systems, it's a flaw of human judgment.

Arguably, let's adopt the conclusion of the experiment.  From that, we can generalize that any security scheme that is dependent on a human being is flawed because… well, because of the human inability to make absolutely correct judgments.  So for example, PIN numbers and passwords are all flawed because people give them away while being victimized in a phishing scheme.  Likewise, the idea of ATM cards is flawed because people get them stolen.  A bit far-fetched but theoretically, a 256-bit RSA encryption scheme is flawed because it can be decrypted by an intellect (artificial or not) eventually as time approaches infinity.

I wonder how many man hours and money was spent carrying out and studying this experiment.  Certainly, all those resources could have been better spent on research into how security can be improved and not to undermine a measure to thwart phishing.  I would consider this experiment incomplete until "something better" comes out of it.

In other news, tomorrow, we're probably going to see the result of a study that concludes that the idea of cars is flawed because humans who drive them cause accidents.  So everyone should walk while twiddling their thumbs until "something better" comes along.