As many of you may know, we received some not so positive news about Val's health. She was diagnosed with PLN (protein-losing nephropathy) a few days before we headed to the beach. Basically it is a life-threatening disease that can't be reversed. To say the least, Brian and I were devastated and I will admit that I cried myself to sleep the night we got the diagnosis. What we do know is that we caught it early and it is not in a progressive stage and currently she is being treated with medication.Val seems to be doing really well - she seems to be back to her normal self and enjoyed her vacation, so we are really hopeful that this was a fluke and she has been misdiagnosed and will be fine - living a long life with us. The thing is, we remembered a quote we heard from my nephew Gavin's baptism. "If you have hope, you can change the evidence." And let me tell you, there has been a boat load of hope coming from Brian and me. And to top it all off, we found out while we were at Stone Harbor, that they were having a Blessing of the Animals. It is fate. Val was blessed and is on the road to recovery. We thank you for all your prayers - Val is our baby girl, the best dog ever, and we love her dearly.
