In The Beginning

Hi. I'm Sam. My full name is Samuel Clarence (after the ghost in "It's a Wonderful Life"). I'm 11 years old, spry, smart, loyal, and courageous. Here's a picture of me just so you have it (ignore the cat and no, I am not a fawn in disguise)
My mom got real sick last year, and in not-the-male-way, showed signs, serious signs, of a heart condition which no doctor, dentist, ENT (the long name is just too long to spell out here), or orthopedic guy, picked up. Even when presented with symptoms such as shortness of breath, exhaustion, jaw pain, back pain ... they all missed it. My mom was very very sick. Her FRIENDS brought her to the emergency room. Her FRIENDS read the MRI and assessed a very bad situation. She is lucky to have such FRIENDS. I know that she's glad that I was a good boy too. I kept quiet, didn't ask too much, waited ... a lot. So anyway, the bottom line, after pretty much every specialty had a look, and every test under the sun was ordered and reviewed, they determined that she had endocarditis with septic emboli. Read that as VERY BAD NEWS. She's lucky that she was young (48 is considered young for this) so they operated on her and, P.E.T.A. step aside, a cow did not die in vain. Bottom line? She now has a new aortic valve (bovine) and a pacemaker. The pacemaker keeps her going, and going, and going because the infection that she had ate away the electrical parts of her heart. BAD INFECTION! You go sit in the corner! BAD, BAD, BAD INFECTION! So for 40 days, and 40 nights, she slept in a drug induced state at Robert Wood Johnson, in their oh-so-very-lovely ICU area, tended to by oh-so-very-efficient nurses (more about them later). Funny thing about humans ... if they lay down too long, eventually they can't get up and take you out for a walk. Personally, I like laying down. I lay down. I get up. I eat. I play. I lay down. Life is wonderful!!! :) Anyway ... back to my mom. So after all the hospital stuff, she was transported by ambulance (or so she whispered to me) to a nursing home where she learned to walk again. She said that she also learned to put clothes on too. I don't see why they just don't grow fur like I have. HARUMPH! She said that she *did* grow fur, but it didn't really do the trick and people stared. I don't know about you, but I've never noticed people staring at my fur.
Sniffin' your ears,
Sam