Hi everyone! I have not posted recently, been pretty busy training for my next half in September. I have not posted mostly because my running has not motivated me to post. Not that I am not running, that is happening for sure; had one of my best runs ever last weekend. It is just that I have not been motivated to post about running.

When I started this blog I did it with the intent of blogging mostly about my journey “From Here to Me” and right now involves a lot of running and lifestyle changes. For some reason I have not been able to write about these things lately; so I am thinking maybe a change for a bit.

Maybe I will post what it is like to be a peri-menopausal 49-year old with the goal of sliding into fifty fit, fabulous, and sane :).

Today my post is going to be about Charlie. Charlie is our 15-year old Russian Blue, he is affectionately known as Charlie Man around the house. Charlie came to us about 4-years ago when a neighbor of ours passed away. Timmons’ (our neighbor) family did not want him and asked if we would take him. Being an animal rescue household, we were not going to say no; and every day since has been a joy.

I want to tell you first about Timmons, our fantastic neighbor. Timmons was a WWII vet who had been a prisoner of war in Germany, as a career (he was long since retired when we met him) he was an Ad Man, you know in the 50s and 60s like on Madmen, after retirement he became a fixture in the Louisville area social scene.

Timmons was also married for over 30 years and had children. 30 years into his marriage he let everyone know that he preferred the company of a male partner and from that day forward was able to live his life with a man he loved; they were together for over 30 years. We loved Timmons and miss him dearly.

Back to Charlie – when we first took Charlie we also took a chair from Timmons family and a pair of Timmons pants. For a month Charlie laid in our bedroom on that chair and pair of pants. It took my daughter visiting from college to bring him out of the room. Since that time we have all fallen in love with Charlie and his charming ways. A few days ago Charlie, who has been getting thinner, was showing distress in his breathing so we took him to the vet. It turns out his lungs were full of fluid; so we had the vet drain the fluid and brought him home. The vet said with medication, which we started that next day, and follow-up he could be fine.

Well, last night Charlie had a seizure, it was scary and sad. My daughter works part-time at the local animal shelter and she was working today, so we thought we might decide to put him down. She was working until 6 pm so she asked that we wait until the end of her shift. But today Charlie had a good day. He ate some, laid with me while I napped and laid with my husband a bit, this is pretty much his normal routine at 15-years old. We decided not to take him to the shelter, and I took the day off tomorrow to see how he does tonight and tomorrow.

My daughter’s other job is at a Vets office, so she will talk to them on Monday and see what they say.

We never want to see him suffer, but we certainly do not want to take away his life if he is feeling better. This is a really tough decision; how do we decide when quality of life is not good and it is time to end it? I am really struggling with this decision. We love our animals like family, so on one hand we do not want them to suffer, on the other, we do not want to lose them.

So, here we are, enjoying one more day with Charlie, and perhaps another, or maybe not.