Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

Shortly after we got married, I asked Brad if we could set up an aquarium. I had been watching "Finding Nemo" quite a bit, mostly because I liked the screen saver on the DVD. It was like watching real fish swim around. The only thing missing was the soothing and steady gurgle of the filter.

We've said welcome and goodbye to a dozen or so fish in those 4 years. I still enjoy the aquarium with its sights and sounds. I like gazing at the colorful little denizens of the deep as they swim effortlessly around the sea grass and the doughnut rock. I think it's cute that they seem to be able to distinguish whose hand is dropping in their food flakes at the end of the day.

Merely the smell of the store brought back a flood of memories. Having grown up on a dairy, my recollections of my animal experiences during child hood included a lot of non-traditional stuff. I bottle fed a baby goat one summer. I gathered duck eggs on a number of occasions. Mom has a picture of me in my high-chair, grinning from ear to ear as my dad dangles a small snake a safe distance from my face. Those are just a few examples.

With the onset of asthma and allergies, interaction with most animals of the "pet" variety has been severely curttailed. Cats are out of the questions. A dog as well. I don't know enough about herpetology to properly care for a lizard, snake, or other reptile.

What I lack in know-how about particular species, I make up for in availability. Now that I'm home more time, I wanted to spend it getting to know a different sort of pet. I had been checking out the animals at the local (non-chain store) pet shop for the last few weeks. They have all sorts of critters--some very classy and others so scruffy they would aspire to ragamuffin status. The bunnies piqued my interest.

I looked on Petfinder.com to see if there were any adoptable bunnies. I found some, and scheduled a visit to the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA. We met "Thumper" a Netherlands dwarf rabbit. He's a little on the shy side, but that's okay. He behaves himself, and is doing well with his litter box. We've got a little bunny playground all set up, and he's liking that. Mostly he's just sniffing everything. He even came over to me to check me out, which was a huge breakthrough. The people at the humane society said that Thumper was not a big fan of being handled. They watched how Thumper and I interacted and said that he was better with me than anyone else they'd seen.