Reality Stings

We all hear how horrible Lyme Disease can be. My good friend Sharon at After Gadget blog has been living with it for years and I have watched, listened and wished I could take her suffering away. She was a mentor for me years ago when I was first hit with severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and she has become a mentor once more for me- walking me through the process of learning all I can to help Thane be all he can be.

When Thane was diagnosed, I remained pretty optimistic about it all. I had the attitude of *finally we know what's wrong* more than the attitude of how damaging a disease this can be. When the vet said he could still work as long as I listened to him, I assumed in error that as long as we took days off to live life at home, that Thane and I would continue to do at least the errands we loved to do as a team.

Today I got hit right between the eyes with how wrong I was. Reality quite frankly stinks. It rarely measures up with expectations. In this case I just felt empty. I had Thane in a situation where the only solution was to walk short distances and stop for breaks- breaks that Thane determined the length of time we took down time along the route back to the max stop. I did everything I could to minimize his walking distance- took a stop I loathe so that we just had to go up to the end of the transit center stop to connect with our bus and then took the stop in town that we could follow a shortcut path straight home.

I was glad to be home and above all sorry from the depths of my being that I had so badly misjudged Thane's abilities right now. All I thought about is that we had been home for several days rest which IMO meant we were good to go.

Now with reality setting in, I feel this sadness coming over me. Don't get me wrong, I still aim to be optimistic here- but reality just has a way of jerking you back from this fantasy of what it will be to what it truly is. Lyme Disease is not for the faint of heart. It ravages ones insides- affecting everything and anything in its tenacious journey.

I knew that we did not catch Thane's early. This bug has had over two years to bounce around inside of him causing one roller coaster ride after another along the way. He'll still jump up after a really long nap to play some ball, but there is less drive- less forceful obsession in the way he goes about it. One of the biggest things I noticed this week was how much he slept. Every time I turned around to do something, he was curled up again taking another nap. I'm trying to tell myself that this is good that he is listening to his own needs, but a part of me feels wounded by it as well. From the simplest of issues to fluctuating lameness to neuro involvement, Thane has been trying to tell us for over a year that something was wrong.

Some people seemed to feel that I was looking for medical diagnoses from the normal behaviors of my dog. It hurt to hear comments like that, but I was the one who had to assure that Thane was given what he needed. To those very people who felt that way, my feelings are this- had I stopped looking Thane's career and very life would have been shortened dramatically. I don't know what the future holds for Thane and I- whether or not there will be irreversible issues, weaknesses for life in certain realms or not. All I know is that right now, I just feel like I have been punched in the gut.