It’s been nearly a month now since our boy (bulldog) Biggie suddenly got sick. It started off with us noticing spots of blood wherever he happened to be resting and then his stool having a dark tarry look to it.

After taking him to the vet and having blood tests run they found his blood was alright and no signs of blood in his stool, but the concern was he had a very low platelet count which basically meant an auto immune problem.

He was placed on several kinds of medication and this produced a great amount of thirst in him and, unbeknownst to us, an extremely low ability to hold his bowel. We discovered this when we came home and found our living room filled with a wretched stench of pee.

Usually Biggie is allowed to roam free around the house but we soon realized that to avoid more messes we would need to quarantine him in our kitchen.

This meant using our about 4′ high gate extended across the length of the kitchen to make sure he stayed on that side.

This is tough enough when you have two adults and a dog, but add our almost 3 year old to the mix and I can’t tell you how quickly it all became a bit overwhelming at times. For weeks, every time we came home or woke up in the morning it was to find one or more puddles of pee in the kitchen and needing to grab our bucket, mop, and pine sol. There were a lot of moments that I was absolutely over the whole situation.

And then, just as he’s getting better and we get the great news that his platelet count is steadily rising, Biggie suddenly gets diarrhea.

Our house turned into a HOT MESS!

My husband was the first to find the initial offense. Somehow Biggie had broken past the gate while we were enjoying a day at the pool, and when my husband went home to grab some stuff there were a bunch of very loose stool stains on our living room carpet. My husband tried in vain to clean it up, but honestly the stench was horrid, and we had been thinking of getting new floor anyway and getting rid of the carpet. My husband was so frustrated that day that he mentioned he felt like just cutting out the soiled carpet and I was like “go for it!” Because seriously a whole in the middle of our living room carpet was way better than the smell!

So the pee problem got better but then it was 3 days of diarrhea and our patience level at an extreme low with a high level of frustration.

Eventually things got better. Biggie’s platelet count continued to increase, he’s slowly gaining back the 8 lbs he lost, and no more pee or diarrhea accidents.

Tonight is the first night we’re releasing Biggie from quarantine and I’m so grateful that he’s showing good signs of recovery because he really had us worried.

It was nice to have him back bonding with us as a family and roaming around the house. And as my husband was drying our daughters hair after her bath and I was rubbing Biggie’s belly, I was reminded of all the blessings we have. That God helped Biggie heal and then just marveling at the beauty and blessed creation that is our daughter.

Going through the last few weeks was often tiresome and frustrating but I realize now that life is going to bring about a lot of these kind of moments and it’s getting through them that has us appreciate the sweetness of life and understand that the bitter moments are a necessary part.