[Forever in Our Hearts]

09.26.08

At about 11 pm Shawn got a call on his cell phone from Nic's girlfriend Jessika (yes, they are back together...). She was crying and said that she was worried about Nic, that he was talking about suicide. I went to his house to see what was up. On the way there, I was in shock that suicide would ever even enter Nic's mind. I just couldn't believe it, it's so NOT Nic. I guess there are a lot of parents out there that feel this way after their child kills themselves but seriously, I just couldn't believe it. While driving there I called him on his cell phone and he answered. He was sobbing so hard I had a hard time understanding him. I finally got the story out of him:

He was at the animal hospital, Piston had died. When he got home that night and went to feed Piston, he started hacking and eventually fell over and quit breathing. Nic tried to get anything that might be in his mouth out and then gave him CPR. He got him breathing again and rushed him to the animal hospital near his house. I seriously can't believe he did CPR on a dog and it worked.

At the hospital, they put him on a breathing machine and ran tests, did x-rays. Turns out Piston was born with a very small trachea. Bulldogs are known for having breathing problems but Piston was worse than normal. He'd already had a couple of problems with it and that Nic had taken him to the vet for. Unfortunately this time he didn't make it. They might of been able to get him breathing again on his own but it would of just kept happening especially the bigger he got. The vet said even if we spent more money and possibly saved him now, within the next month or so Nic would probably come home and find him dead. Nic was devastated. He loved that puppy so much. Almost $700 later and Nic has no puppy... The money's worth it if you still have a pet. Sigh...

Justin was camping with friends and had hurry back to say goodbye to Piston. Hannah came too. It was so hard to watch my sweet, giant son wracked with grief. Before we said our final goodbyes, Hannah and I ran to Wal Mart to get a couple of kits for Nic and Justin to each get an imprint of Piston's paws. The kits came with a frame that has the imprint on one side and a picture on the other. I'm glad they thought of this and I'm especially glad that Wal Mart is open all night and had them.

Unfortunately, we don't have very many pictures of Piston and they ones we do have aren't very good. On Sunday (9/28/08) Nic was going to bring Piston over and I was going to take a bunch of pictures of them. I'm so sad we didn't get that opportunity.



Oh, and Nic WASN'T suicidal, I knew he wouldn't be. It was hard to understand him and when he was telling Jessika on the phone what was going on, she heard died/dead and thought he was talking about suicide. She knew he'd been stressed about school and work and must of thought it was bad enough that he would think that was a way out. She even called the cops she was so scared for him. Unfortunately explaining to the cops wasn't something he needed to deal with right then but they quickly saw the misunderstanding and left. Poor Jessika...she was so worried about him. I appreciate that she is willing to let us know when she thinks something isn't right. I'm just glad she was mistaken.