The Lake Erie Monsters Hockey Club (The AHL affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche) had their annual Pucks and Paws hockey game vs. Rochester on March 3rd at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH. This is where you are able to attend the hockey game with your pet. An assemblage of 8,136 humans and 500 dogs attended. Pretty cool - we also went last year.
They offered to let us drop the Ceremonial First Puck at the game (which is fitting since Sidney is named after a hockey player), honoring Sidney and his success at living for over 3 1/2 years with Congenital Megaesophagus and surviving long past the month he was given to live way back when he was only 10 weeks old.
The PA announcer did a really nice introduction and story on Sidney, his Megaesophagus condition and how we were able to manage it and give Sidney a great life and what a big hockey fan he is. It's nice to let people know that MegaE is not a death sentence and the crowd gave us all a great round of applause. Which was really cool.
I like to think we were there representing all of us who are managing this condition with our special MegaE friends. We all put in the time and effort to give our dogs a great life. Our story is just one of many. But I can say this - Sidney has led a way more interesting life than he would have if he wasn't born with MegaE. Pretty sure he wouldn't have been on the ice in front of a large crowd dropping the puck at a hockey game! He's just taking us along for the ride!
Thanks again to everyone at the Lake Erie Monsters organization for this great honor!