[rclawren]

I just walked in the door with my 2 babies safely in my arms. I am overwelmed with everything that has happened this past month...and can't believe the encouragement and prayers that I have just read.
We left San Antonio on July 1st and headed to New Jersey where Doug's dad, Gus, under went routine heart surgery. He came out of the surgery fine, but 10 min into recovery he coded and was dead for 20 minutes. They were able to resesitate him and cat scans showed that he was brain dead. He was only 50 years old. He had the surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead Professor Dr operated on him. After he coded, the Dr came and told us that he made a mistake, that he was overly confident when he did that left side of the heart that he didn't even finish the check ups on the right side. And he punctured a hole in the wall of the heart causing his heart sack to fill with blood. But the Dr said that he was sorry and that proceedures were going to be put in to place for that to not happen again!! Unbelievable!! What a joke of a hospital! Oh, but they offered to pay all expenses that accrued in the hospital...as if that is supposed to help what they did to our family. We spent 3 weeks in the hospital before waiting for Doug's mom to come to terms with it all and agree to pull the respirator out. We pulled it out on the 22nd around 5pm and Gus passed away at 12:50 am. His parents had sold their house and were in the process of moving things out before Gus went in to surgery. They had to be out by the 28th and we had to deal with moving her out because we couldn't lose the sell of the house, cause there is no way she could afford it now. So much stress and sadness and greif.....but when we were at the house everybody gathered around Aggie and Baby expecting them to make us all smile....and they did just that. They were 2 little furballs of joy for all of us.
After the funeral, a couple days later we headed back out for our 2 day treak back to San Antonio. Doug had to be at work today by 4 in the afternoon, so we knew we had a deadline and had zero time to fool around on the drive. We stopped in Malvern, Arkansas and got out and had lunch. I"m sure with Aggie having gone through so much the past month with being in 2 different houses and being around new people he was all ready freaked out. He somehow pushed the window button and got it rolled all the way down and jumped out. We came out and I saw the window down and immediately crumbled. As if we haven't dealt with enough all ready. People were yelling at us that he went this way and that way, and he was no where to be found. Baby was just sitting in the car quietly....too wimpy to jump out the window THANK GOD! We spotted Aggie 2 1/2 hours later he came out of a drainage pipe and ran across the feild and into the marsh lands. Not even 10 minutes later the thunderstorm happend. Lightening and LOUD Thunder.....we saw a tree fall over....and Aggie gets so scared of this weather...he goes and hides in the shower when we are at home and it happens.
After the storm stopped we checked all the drainage pipes...I thought he was gone at that point...the water was so fast and it wasn't letting up at all. We ended up getting a hotel room in the same parking lot and we took shifts all night long watching in this big feild. We had rubber boots and were walking in mud up to our calves. I really thought we lost him. No more sightings all night or at all during the day. Later we found some foot prints that looked like his, which really gave me hope that he survived the thunderstorm. The whole community really came together and hleped us out. All at once I was getting phone calls on my phone saying that they had seen him...unfortunatley it was on a 6 lane highway, but the cars were stopped and people were out looking for him...UNBELIEVABLE! People were calling me saying they heard that we saw him and wanting to come out and help as soon as they got off work. And one guy who came out after work was the one who actually found Aggie. He used to be in the coast gaurd search and rescue and he and his 9 month pregnant girlfriend were searching on their hands and knees with flashlights. He saw Aggie and of course the poor thing ran away, but luckily he ran right into a chain link fence....I ran around the side of the house and saw him crouching there, the guy had a flashlight shining right in his face so he couldn't see anything and try to run off again. I got right to him, and scooped him up, he was still really tense and then he heard my voice smelled me and immediatly relaxed in my arms and couldn't stop licking my face....I got so much dog slobber in my mouth but I didn't care!!!! Every body ran over, every one was cheering, crying, laughing!!!! It really was something you would have seen out of a movie. I really had given up hope at one point, but this small community just kept on searching. Thank God for that Guy that came after he got off work, and knew exactly what to do!!! He found my baby and i couldn't be more grateful!
Thank you to every one and all their prayers.
I have to go take Aggie to the vet and get him checked out.....I will get back on later and let you all know how he is!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!