Hello FMLers --

Thank you so much for your kind and comforting posts.

I've been mostly offline since Lucy's death. I am feeling much better
-- I have gotten some rest, and I am over that spasm of self-blame. I
know I did my best, and what more can any of us do.

I thought that I had misdiagnosed insulimonia for diabetes and that
treating for the opposite condition precipitated a diabetic attack.
Not the case at all -- Dr Dawit told me yesterday that the little dose
couldn't have done a thing bad to her, and now that I am back online I
find the same info from FML friends who know so much more than I do.

It was just a choice to try something or to euthanise her, and Dr Dawit
wouldn't have agreed to it if it had been dangerous.

It certainly is easy to blame oneself. I hope something I gain from
losing poor Lucy is to know that trait better and to temper it. I agree
now that it was simply little Lucy's time.

She did pretty well until that last day. I frequently see the funny
little wagging trot she developed some time into her illness -- and
rathr than giving me pain, it makes me smile w affection to remember
and see it again.

She was a dear one. When I first got her as a kit and through her
healthy almost-two years she was Ms robust, muscular and delightful to
hold. She liked to cuddle in my shirt or bathrobe, and would sometimes
crawl around in there, ending up coming out at the cuff of my sleeve or
at the back of my neck, occasionally climbing on top of my head from
there!

She loved the outdoor pens and the mesh tunnels tha t ran through the
tree leaves back in Calif, and she got a kick out of the set of mesh
tunnels and ramps here that go around the place and into their rooms
and their indoor and outdoor pens.

Well, I miss her, and Rico seems to too. It is sad. And, all things
considered, it was inevitable.

YOW! this very minute we are getting a hell of a hail storm, and I am
in a bldg w a metal roof! Gotta go out and see it. One minute!

*************************

What a racket! It's been almost 10 minutes, waxing and waning, but
mostly heavy -- a torrent of rain w small hailstones. W/ this roof
it's like being inside a drum.

[Posted in FML 5996]