My gut wrenching decision

Written on Sunday Night @ 6pm

I have spent an hour or so vacillating between sadness and anger.  I have a decision to make – one that has been coming for about a year now – but I don’t want to do what I know is right.

I hate who I become on bad days.  I strive to be someone who is positive more often than not; who looks at all the good I have been blessed with.  But on these extremely challenging days, like the past several weeks, and especially this weekend, I struggle just to be me.  I find myself being irritable, angry, frustrated, exasperated, and on and on. It’s as if the essence of who I am has literally been sucked out of me, right along with my energy.

When I decided seven years ago to get my pugs, it was a lengthy decision and one I made with much thought, planning, and preparation.  These last seven years, my dogs have given me so much and they never ask for anything in return.  The thought of my life continuing without them is almost more than I can bear.  And yet, I know that the time has come for me to look at finding them another home.

I know this decision isn’t about me, it’s about them.  The unpredictability of the up and downs of this illness affects my emotional state and my physical state, which unfortunately,  is now affecting them.  My male pug barks almost incessantly now and my female has became nervous around me.  They have learned, that even if my bad days are not directed at them, that I am not as predicable as I once was when I was feeling a lot better.

I think college and my grand-daughter’s journey into this world took more out of me than even I had realized.  I don’t regret participating in either of those events, but as I have learned so many times over the years, my body does not forget and so now I am paying.

I’ve been praying about what to do for a long time, and tonight, I knew that it was time.  Even still, I can’t get my tears to dry up.  I just can’t imagine my life without them.  But I am struggling on bad days to take care of them.  Tonight, Bronte had to go potty, and it was all I could do to take her out.  Once out, she decided to take a very long time to go potty while I was standing there, begging her to hurry.  As I watched myself growing frustrated because she was taking too long to go, I knew that I was no longer giving her my best.  And she deserves that.  So does Dekker.

Over the past year, I have found that I need more peace and quiet and that I can no longer endure constant noise.  It’s as if someone is ripping my skin off or dragging their nails down the chalk board.  I just have no tolerance for loud noise or constant interruptions.  I also am having more difficulty with multi-stimuli.  I find I do best in an environment in which I can pace myself, have a fair amount of quiet, and I can rest up before I have to go somewhere where I am confronted with all of the above.

Dr. Cheney once said that phase three of this illness is where we do well within our own 4Walls, but once we go outside them, we struggle to function.  I am now at that place and have been for a couple of years.

I don’t know how I am going to do this, but because I adore my pugs, I know it is something I need to do for them.  I say that and yet anger springs up inside me because I realize this illness is taking yet another thing from me.  This is a part of this illness that most people do not see.  It is the part that most people don’t understand because they don’t realize that the losses keep coming.

In college, I was nicknamed a pit bull because of my tenacity to keep getting up after the illness would knock me down.  I will get up after this loss as well.  I know I have that in me.  I understand somewhere deep inside that I need to look at this from a different perspective.  I need to think about all the wonderful days I have had with my ‘little funny face’ and my ‘wiggle worm’.  I need to change my perspective to that in order to do this.

In the end, I believe God gives us different seasons for different reasons.  I have had a seven year journey with these adorable pugs.  Now it’s time for me to find a great family for them who can take care of them and give them everything they need.  It is time for another family to enjoy a new season with them.

If I can just hold on to that perspective, I can do this.

Determined to continue forward,