penny's surgery

I never like to see my dogs suffer. I know it’s just a fact of life, and the consequences that I have to deal with for having dogs, but that doesn’t make it any easier. 

Last year, my dog Sarge had Osteosarcoma in his leg. He was too old to have any success in amputating his leg – even if he survived the surgery, he wouldn’t have been able to adapt to being a tripod. His quality of life had fallen so quickly, and it was so hard for me – not only to lose a pet, but to have to see the huge growth on his back leg grow so ugly. It was hard to look at, and that fact made me feel worse. We – or should I say, my parents - had to make the hard decision to put him down and end his suffering. I have since gotten through the sadness of that experience, for the most part, but the memory still stings.

Recently, my dog Penny seemed pretty sick. It wasn’t unusual for her to avoid eating all of the food in her dish, but it was unusual for her to avoid it even when it was replaced with yummy wet dog food and pumpkin. In response to her odd behavior, my sister Emma and I took her to The Animal Clinic of Kearney to have her checked out. After an x-ray, we were told that she had a mass in her spleen and that, depending on the results of an ultrasound, they would have to give her surgery to remove it or remove it through a noninvasive procedure.

It turned out to be a hard mass, and so she had to have surgery to remove her spleen. She’s safe and sound at home now, sleeping soundly on the floor next to my bed. I am so grateful that the growth inside of her wasn’t cancerous and was contained – I wasn’t ready to let go of her. She’s only seven years old, and I wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye without some seriously nasty sobbing. 

pokémon: detective pikachu

I saw the new Pokémon movie, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, last night. I'm not ashamed to admit that it made me cry - why would I be? As I was growing up, one of my favorite things was Pokemon. I started playing with Pokemon Sapphire and I was completely entrenched in the world of it all. As I've "grown up", I still feel huge amounts of love for the franchise. If genies were to grant me three wishes, I can guarantee that one of my wishes would be going into the world of Pokémon and staying there for the rest of my life. No matter how long it's been since I picked up the game, I still feel consistently drawn into it whenever I turn it on again.
The incredible thing about this experience is that it's not unique to me at all. To thousands of other people across the world, they feel the exact same way. The impact on those of us who adored these games is almost hard to believe - did you know that researchers at Harvard have identified a 'Pokémon region' in the brains of adults that played as kids? It's true. When shown images of Pokémon among other objects, the region of the brain called the occipitotemporal sulcus responded more to the Pokémon than it did to the other images.
My sister and I, who are six years apart, went to see the movie together. We've been going to see new movies together a lot recently, and it's honestly been one of my highlights of this year so far. We've also bonded over these games - traded Pokémon, battled them, and just talked to them. Plus, I'm pretty sure she beat a few gym leaders for me along the way.
I guess the point of this blog post is to flesh out how deep my love for Pokémon goes. It's been a huge part of my childhood and my teenhood and I'm assuming it will be a huge part of my adulthood too. Call it a silly kid's game all you want, but to me, it's one of my favorite things in the world.

on getting back up

A few weeks ago, I went on a trip with my high school orchestra to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis. However, before we had even left the parking lot, I had a complete wipeout off of the curb. I tripped, or fell, or went down somehow, and I just remember lying on the concrete for a second, thinking "Of course this would happen to me today", before getting right back up and dusting myself off.
Now, I don't mean to go making mountains out of molehills - taking a ten-second event and stretching it out into a soliloquy about my faith or my struggles or whatever topic I've drawn out of a hat. That's not to say that I am not going to.
For being only sixteen, I would say that I have had my fair share of struggles. I am choosing to not divulge those struggles, but believe me - they're there. However, I feel like if there's anything my parents have chosen to iron into my head is that no matter what happens, you get back up and continue to thrive despite your circumstances. You can depend on faith, friends, family, whatever it takes to get you through your struggles - but you should always get back up.
I try to apply this to as many situations as possible. If there's ever anything that shakes up my perspective - any kind of relationship struggles, some traumatic event, or I'm just struggling with school, I always try to have a recovering game plan. If I need to talk to someone, I do; If I need to talk to my counselor, I do.
I hope that whoever you are, whatever you're doing, I hope you remember - you can always get back up and find a way to succeed despite your struggles.