All Alone

Last night we had puppy class and Nick's co-raisers took him home after class, so its just Hope and I for the week. Hope is so funny, I think she has actually gotten herself attached to the little guy! Last night as I was sitting at my computer, she kept looking at me like, "Where did the little puppy go?" She would disappear and come back with a toy in her mouth (something she rarely does) and look at me like "I wanna play, but there's nobody here to play with!" 

I'm actually really liking this co-raising arrangement as I am looking forward to a lot of 1:1 time with Hope, she is simply nice to have around to hang out with.  It also allows me to still be able to take her to Sutter to do our hospital visits on the days I don't have Nick. I have a co-worker who used to watched Zucchini at work for me when I took Hope to the hospital, but since Nick is still young, I'm not comfortable leaving him with anybody quite yet.

I'm changing my work schedule around a bit by working at home in the morning for a few hours (because I have to be able to talk to some team members located in India - gotta love working for a global company - NOT!) from about 6-8am and then going into the office after that. Today, I took Hope to Sutter on the way into work and brought her into work with me after that, it was nice having her at the office since I didn't have Nick.  

We had a nice visit with 3 patients today.  The sad part was that one of the patients we visited a couple of times over this past year passed away. It sure brought home a huge dose of reality to me today that no matter how hard life gets sometime, there are people out there dealing with a lot more than I could ever imagine. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life in bed on a respirator? Today's visit put things into perspective...

There is a young girl in the unit who we generally visit with each time we go. Some days she is "there", some days not...today was one of those days when she was. As Hope got on the chair next to her bed and I had Hope put her head close to her hand, she smiled and I saw her make the effort to move her hand to reach Hope's head. Hope just remained right there while she touched her without moving, I was so proud of her! This young girl got the biggest smile on her face when she touched Hope.  The funny part is that Hope's tail wags so much on our visits, which is not a normal behavior for her as she is not really a "waggy" type dog. Guess she is doing what she is meant to do and is happy doing it, and I'd like to think that Hope brightens the day for some of these patients...what a girl!