Did I Ever Tell You About Lucy?

I think it’s time I tell you about the secret that helps keeps me going. She’s my one constant that I can count on. Just seeing her can change my whole day from bad to good, in an instant. When I’m weak and can’t move, she’s there for support. When my tablets are giving my side effects and I’m sleepy—she’s sleepy. When I’m playful – she’s playful but she understands my limits. She can read me like a book and I her. We know each other well by now.

I feel like she is an extension of me through and through.

I can remember the day we met like it was yesterday. Her big brown eyes stole my heart. She was super cute and everything I had ever wanted.

I owe her a lot, actually. I remember when I was first diagnosed and started Rebif for the first time. I was so scared. I was depressed. But she came in and just lit up my world.

After every injection she’d be by my side. Every tear that was shed she counteracted with cuddles and kisses. At times we even sat and cried together. I told her everything, from how I was feeling to how I was scared for the future.

We often escaped together and went for a walk around the woods near our home. She loves going for walks, only we call them “going for fish and chips.”

She truly is one of my best friends.

She came with her own set of issues though, mainly in the form of severe food allergies.

She’s always had stomach problems, but it had never been dealt with before we met. It’s quite annoying that she literally can’t eat anything but specific, medicated food but we make it comical in our own way.

When it’s time for her meal she will get crazy excited. Waving at me frantically to try to make me serve it faster. She loves it.

When she’s jumping about, I often say something like, “Who ordered the pizza, no base, no cheese, hold the sauce?” She’ll bark her orders at me until she gets what she wants!

She is quite bossy really. In the morning she’ll burst into my room and jump up on the bed and demand we go outside. I give in — I always do.

During the day, she never leaves my side. I’ll be on the computer working and she’ll be asleep next to me. I’m still training her to be sociable. Before we met, she was in an awful place where everyone was horrible to her and treated her like filth. They abused her regularly, injected her with chemicals and starved her.

Because of this, she had a hard time trusting people when she first came to live with me. She used to think I’d steal her things and she didn’t understand why I was looking after her. Why I was giving her treats and cuddles. She was so confused, she wouldn’t even let me touch her unless it was at arm’s length. Whenever we went out and bumped into others, she would get defensive and shout as loud as she could at them till they went away.

But that’s over for her now. We’re together and over the years we’ve grown stronger. We have talked – a lot – and we finally understand each other. It was her turn to look after me when I was on those painful injections. She was there every step of the way and I think meeting her gave me a great distraction a lot of the time from my MS symptoms and the stress of treatment.

I’m so glad that we met. I’m so glad that I reached out to her.

Lucy, our Papillon-Dachshund cross, my fur baby, I love you always. Thank you for always being there, this blog is for you.

Do you have a pet that has helped you through your bad times?