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.

This loss in no way diminishes the great season the Yellow Jackets had in 2008.  I honestly expected Tech to go 6-6 mainly due to the introduction of the new coaching staff, new offense, and being the youngest team in the ACC.  A 9-4 season with some great wins (especially to U[sic]GA) brought Tech some high-profile coverage of its season and games.

I intend to keep up with whatever news that comes out about Tech during spring practice like I did for last year.  I am biased but I think there are some great things ahead for the GT football program in the years to come.  I can’t wait to see what our guys can do after a Spring and Summer of maturing with this past season under their belts.  It’s great to be a Tech fan.

Happy New Year!

Admittedly, I think some angles make it look worse than it is.  For example, the camera angle actually on the field in slow-motion does undoubtedly make it look like the referee pushed himself toward Garcia.  The normal TV camera doesn’t make it look as bad.  In the end, I think it’s all about the referee’s position as an umpire.  According to wikipedia:

The umpire (U) stands behind the defensive line and linebackers, observing the blocks by the offensive line and defenders trying to ward off those blocks — looking for holding or illegal blocks. Prior to the snap, he counts all offensive players. … As the umpire is situated where much of the play’s initial action occurs, he is considered by many to hold the most dangerous officiating position.

So according to that definition of an umpire, it looks like Hackett is out of position but on the other hand it could have been because he thought the play was developing to his left and stepped to the right and didn’t realize that Garcia would counter the run to his side.  On that same token though, this is not the first time I’ve seen a run that was originally supposed to develop to one side and instead the running back or quarterback tries to make an adhoc play of its own.  Anyway, I’m a huge football fan and it’s the first time I’ve seen this type of thing happening except for in this Buffalo Wild Wing commercial.

]]> http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/referee-hacket-tackles-usc-qb-garcia/feed/ 0 http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/georgia-tech-lost-today/ http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/georgia-tech-lost-today/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:18:33 +0000 john http://www.johnhwang.net/?p=455 Don’t comment telling me I’m wrong because I am talking metaphorically and the title was for rhetorical purposes.  In reality, Tech got the W today and are 5-1 overall now but it’s very difficult to consider today’s win a victory because it could have easily gone either way and came down to a barely tipped field goal that prevented the game from going into OT.  Were we playing a team in the ACC?  Nope.  Tech played Gardner Webb, a Division I-AA team that our program scheduled because Army pulled out of a home-and-home contract last year.

If you are a Gardner Webb fan, I don’t mean to say that just because GW is a Division I-AA team that it has no credibility or chance to beat a I-A team (for example, Toledo beat Michigan today) but let’s not pretend that this is the first time you’ve read this game should have been an easy game for Tech.  Because, it should have been.  Even after reading somewhere that GW was a great rush-defense team, I admit that I didn’t think much of it and wouldn’t have been able to believe that they would be able to hold our rush-oriented offense to 79 yards on the ground.

Now for Tech fans, let’s not use the “but it’s our third-string QB” excuse because that doesn’t explain why we only had 79 yards rushing.  That doesn’t explain why Calvin was sacked two times and he was the leading rusher at the end of the game with 35 yards rushing on 19 carries.  I am going to be blunt here so be prepared for that: our offensive line just plain sucked.  Coach Paul Johnson said in his radio show last week that they were working a lot on their punt-return team but did he let the offensive line take a week off or something?  CPJ also said after last week after Duke’s game that the offensive line needed to play lower and launch off of the line of scrimmage… but did they instead lay down on the ground and play dead?  I wasn’t able to watch the game since it wasn’t televised but I did listen to it live on radio and I just could not believe that our blocking was so bad that our running game couldn’t even muster 80 yards; don’t forget 35 yards came from Calvin who is more of a pocket-passing QB.

What’s even worse is that after reading this column from Terence Moore at the AJC, it seems as if 80% of our offense failed to show up for this game because aside from our non-existing offensive line, our wide receivers were running wrong routes.  Seriously?  Out of any of the games that the wideouts could be running the wrong routes, they do it on a day that Calvin finally starts a game.  Calvin, who is so easy to root for because of he is so team-oriented and unselfish?  Come on!

In my mind, Coach Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech football team lost today.  They are 4-2 in my book.  We can say a win is a win all we want but we all know Tech coaches, players, students, and fans were disappointed by our lackluster offense today and know that our offense can do better than they did today.  Tech didn’t take GW seriously today and it’s going to hurt the team’s credibility.

How about the glass half-full stuff?  Our defense played decent which is better than piss poor.  This can be used as a good learning experience for our young team so hopefully this game will make them stronger and more focused.

I have to say that I’ve never felt so bad about a grown women before in my life but I feel so sorry for Sarah and her family.  I feel like she jumped into this without realizing how deep the muddy political well is and she only thought about the positives of being the Vice President of the United States and neglected everything else.  I feel sorry for her because she probably thinks that there is no way out now considering she is already in the spotlight and taking the backdoor out of the spotlight will make her look like a quitter.

On the other hand, after watching the debate between Joe and Sarah, I was surprised that she didn’t make any ridiculous mistakes and I applaud those that planned and coached her for this debate because they clearly had a plan.  Oddly enough, she basically stated her plan within the first few minutes of the debate; she said that she may not answer questions as the moderator or Joe would like her to answer.  She did exactly that.  Sarah rarely responded directly to the questions at hand and instead made the points that she wanted to make.  This is smart for two reasons.  First, it forces Joe to be on the defensive side of the fence because he wants to respond directly to her answer which may not be the same thing that the moderator had asked.  Second, due to the fact that she forming her responses regardless of the question asked most of the time, highlights of the debate to be played over and over again until next Tuesday’s second Presidential debate will portray her in a better light than this past week with her interview with Katie Couric.

So who do I think won the debate?  Well, let’s see… if there was a rubric of all questions asked as rows and two columns for Senator Biden and Governor Palin, I think I would have more relevant notes jotted down in the Biden column while I would have more questions marks on the Palin column.  If you cut out each candidates replies and replayed them randomly without the moderator’s question, I think both did a good job of getting the point across that their Presidential candidate would have liked them to get across but I still would give Biden the edge.

In the end, why even bother reading this?  I’m sure it’s on YouTube by now so go watch it and make your own decision.

Allow me to continue my sarcastic tone; operating refineries in the hurricane prone Gulf Coast isn’t like finding the cure for cancer or finding the Holy Grail, is it?  A refinery that is shutdown due to a Hurricane isn’t a mysterious puzzle, it should be an expected technical problem that any decent company should be able to resolve with the only question being how many man hours it would take to get it done.  In stark contrast, it would be a completely different thing if the monster from Cloverfield popped up out of the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed all the refineries there.  That would be considered, say it with me those that are responsible for managing these refineries, un-ex-pect-ed because no one in there right mind would have ever imagined that scenario.

So my rant on refinery operators is done.  Of course, I’m not trying to shift the blame away from consumer panic caused by what seems to be a rumor but coming up on the third week of the gas shortage in Charlotte, I can’t help but think that there is some flaw in how the gasoline is distributed in the Southeast.

Less than two years away from 2010, where are the flying cars?  Better yet, where is Mr. Fusion?

To the right is one of my first attempts at High-Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.  It was easier than I expected so I would highly encourage other photography enthusiasts to give it a go.  I set my alarm for 6:50AM because sunrise was supposed to be at around 6:57am.  I woke up either by accident or because I received an email and my phone beeped.  Either way, I just grabbed my camera and tripod and grabbed a couple dozen shots on this wooden walkway.

After the three exposures were HDRified, I made some minor edits using Photoshop like darkening the sky and upping the contrast and sharpness overall to give it a more dramatic look.  I kind of wish there were more clouds in the sky, I think that would have looked spectacular.