Nups and Pups

The past two-ish weeks have been wedding-tastic.

 First, Linz n' Luke tied the knot. And their matching names weren't even the best part of the wedding. If I had to give a prize, it would be a tie between the "help" the groom received when it came time to kiss the bride (stepladder, please?) and the Royal Couple wedding snapshot, photo-shopped with L&L's faces. Loving the humor---it wouldn't have been a Murl/Stiger wedding without it.

I also have to say this is the first wedding ceremony I have attended where, instead of the lovey-dovey romantic heart-melting, I felt instead this strange "you-two-really-have-no-idea-how-hard-this-thing-is-gonna-be" feeling. Probably because my own husband and I spent the 80 minute drive to the ceremony engaged in a heated argument. The kind where neither of us speaks because the tension is too thick and we are both so determined that we are right that we can't bear to be the one to show weakness and admit our own sinful hearts.

And, of course, it was over an issue that we have been arguing about for YEARS! Considering that we only recently added the "s" to year in terms of the length of our marriage, that is a long time to argue over the same thing, again and again---just when I think we have worked something out and made progress, BAM! It hits again. This time from the left. And behind the knee. Taking out a leg. And I'm on the floor, defenseless, wondering, Didn't we get rid of your sometime last August?

This past weekend was more wedding-ness. My sister Bekah is getting married in 42 days, and my sisters and I threw her a bridal shower last Saturday. The shower was tons of  fun; between the setting up, the cooking, the decorating, the slideshowing, the picture-taking, the gameshowing (and the special bonus round), I was pleased to find out just how well my sisters and I complement one another when it comes to planning parties. With lots and lots of help from generous aunts and family friends.  Later on Saturday evening, my future brother-in-law, Trenton, asked me if the first year of marriage for Casey and I was easier or harder than we expected.

Casey and I have already had this conversation: Hands down, our first year was easy-peasy-squeasy. Even the second year was a breeze. Now, the beginning of the third---another story entirely. In just the last three months, I finally (begin to) understand what people are talking about when they speak of "difficult times" in reference to marriage. I had always envisioned it as a period of such challenge that both parties are constantly miserable and perhaps second-guessing those vows.

But that's not it at all. What never gets mentioned in all the talk of those first "challenging" years of marriage is that in between the arguing and the frustration and the moodiness and the misunderstanding (no matter how many times a day they may come) are periods as satisfying as the others are dissatisfying. That even though it's hard, it's still good. I still love Casey. And he still loves me. (And thankfully, last weekend, we worked out our differences between the ceremony and the reception. And had a GREAT evening together.)

For us, the hard-ness has come with increased stress. This week, the stress has come in the shape of our pup. We found out this week that Trekker has elevated levels of calcium in his blood. It's a pretty serious condition. We have ruled out many of the minor illnesses that could be the culprit. Now we are left with two.

The first: hyperparathyroidism. Treatable by removing the parathyroids. And with good results. Post-surgery, Trekker will once again become the happy, healthy dog that we know and love.

The second: lymphoma. Treatable, but only temporarily. Most dogs who get treatment only go into remission for months. A year at most.

We won't find out until next week the results of the lab work. People keep asking what we are going to do, but we can't even plan to do something because we won't know what questions to ask until we start to get some more definitive answers.

Until then, Trekker burrows his head into my side a little further as he sleeps on the bed next to me. Am I breaking the rules? You bet. ;)