[Gpdd] [Rainbow Bridge] Ghirardelli

[scalabro3 at cfl.rr.com]

Greetings, GPDD Friends, once again I have sad news to share.  Last Saturday Ghirardelli left us for the Rainbow Bridge. She had been battling an infection of the lining of her brain and ears since August.  Two weeks before she left us, we went to the vet, and she was so pleased with how well she was responding to the antibiotics. Her weight was up, one of the holes in her head had completely healed, the other had stopped oozing, and she seemed to be doing great. The vet suggested that I eliminate some of the antibiotics to see how she did, but I was reluctant to do that. I’m glad I didn’t. I would have felt so guilty if this had happened after reducing her medication. 

Last Thursday evening, she didn’t want to eat anything. She had been fine that morning. I brought her to the vet on Friday morning, and I was afraid that she would leave us on the way there. She made it to the vet, and remarkably back home again that night. The vet was afraid that she wouldn’t make it if she did blood work, but she was able to do it and she found that her white count was more than double what it should be. 

She added another antibiotic to the mix and told us to take her home and keep her warm. I stayed up with her until 2 am, feeding her little bits of critical care and keeping her warm with a heating pad.  When I put her back in her pen, her eyes seemed brighter and she seemed more like herself. A few hours later, she was gone. We must have just missed her because she was still warm when we found her. 

She was such a sweet little girl. We adopted her after we lost Donovan’s brother Dillon. We got an email from a second chance  rescue that takes in animals that are unadoptable. Ghirardelli’s mom was “with pig” when she arrived at the local shelter. She had a baby boar and a sow at the rescue, but they didn’t separate mom from her litter soon enough, so a while later, she had one more pig, our little Ghirardelli. We were told that she was a boy, but as soon as we got her home, we found that she didn’t seem to be all that masculine.

Our plans to move her in with Donovan failed, but thanks to her, we were able to share our lives with Twinkie, who eventually become her roommate, and Chakalaka, who briefly lived with Donovan and then moved in with Dilly Jr. after he and Donovan didn’t get along.

Ghirardelli had a slight head tilt most of her life, and she never got much larger than a hamster. In spite of her petite size, she had the loudest voice in the herd. It was her job to announce that someone had opened the refrigerator.  She used to only announce when my husband was in the kitchen because that was their best chance for extra feeding. When she lost her vision at about three years of age, she began crying out whenever the refrigerator door opened. She couldn’t tell if it was me or my husband, but even when she was blind and mostly deaf due to the ear infection, she still knew when the refrigerator was opened.

The house is very quiet without her. Godiva has moved into the room with boys, and no one has taken over the job of announcing dinner time yet. 

We will miss our sweet little girl. She brought so much joy to us. She handled her limitations and illnesses with such bravery. She will be greatly missed.

I hope that next time I write I will have some happy news to share. I wish you all good health and lots of veggies!  

ME in New Smyrna Beach with Donovan, Cocoa Puff, and Godiva in our home and with Dillon, Twinkie, Puffy, Reese, Dilly Jr., Chakalaka, and Ghirardelli Forever in Our Hearts