Napi Horsemanship

I didn’t think that after chemotherapy and a clear PET scan I would still be fighting for my life.

I’ve always had the bad habit of shrugging off the big things. The glass is half full type of girl, because there is always a silver lining. It can and always could be worse. While yes, I’m not wrong, it doesn’t leave a lot of space for processing and letting go. Ive done this with trauma my whole life.
Cancer was only a part of my 2024 trauma. There was the diagnosis of my youngest daughter with craniosynostosis. Skull remodeling is the recommendation to correct it. Then less than six months after getting home I was putting my life long friend, Tucker, down from cancer. What a morbid come around? Cruel and unusual punishment. I got to beat my cancer, only to have to put my life time friend down because cancer had decided to invade his bones too.

But I’m alive…

Oh you think it would stop there right? Yeah me too, but guess what; we’re wrong.

I’ve struggled my entire life with my mentality. Overly emotional and excitable lead to being bullied and outcasted. Then followed by the internal debate to be bullied or the bully. Depression was just part of growing up along with its friend Anxiety. Poor coping mechanisms have lead to skin picking and mental breakdowns (there’s more but you get the idea). I even took medication when I was pregnant with my eldest, as a precaution, from trauma that happened during that time. Therapists never worked for me because I just felt like they were repeating things back to me that I already knew. But animals, music, nature. Those were all foundations of who I was and what I could put myself into that was healthy. I have a hard time taking care of myself but I can easily take care of others. That’s why Tucker meant so much to me, he helped me so much just by being my friend.

After I lost Tucker I wasn’t doing well but with my management techniques from years of practice, I was able to manage and get by day to day.

Then I lost Kit.

Ever heard of IGA Mitosis? Long story short a simple wound resulted in her death because her autoimmune system attacked her. That’s what the vets conclusion was after necropsy and tests. Super rare… anyway super fucked up and she’s gone now. (Let’s not talk about it please, there’s a reason most of you are finding out just now)

That’s when there was no fail safe left to fall on. At this point, it was dark. It got so bad that I even talked to my partner about going on antidepressants or some type of drug to help with the PTSD/ Depression/ Anxiety. I’m not diagnosed but assuming that I check all the symptom boxes I made an educated guess. If you know me, making the call to start meds is not an easy one for me to admit.

Some days I’m left feeling like a newborn learning how to do everything all over again. Figuring out who I am and what my body can and can’t do. Rebuilding. Coming to terms with the word disabled. Who am I now?

Anyway…. This was more of an an update on where I disappeared to. Let’s divert to another story for a second. I promise it’ll come back around at the end.

Early on in my relationship with Ryan I was able to convince him to “foster” a little four month old lab/ retriever mix. My logic in getting him to let us keep the puppy was that if we were going to have four dogs we may as well get a fifth that we can actually use as a working/hunting dog. It must have been flawless logic because that’s how we ended up with Shorsey. When we got him my thoughts were to let him be the family dog and I kept my distance emotionally to let others bond. My hope was for Ryan to take him in as his dog for hunting. That was until December of 2024. We brought Shorsey to a large social event with tons of people and I got a glimpse of just what he could do for me. Both mentally and physically.

I claimed him soon after that event. I decided everyone else had had their chance and now he was mine. It’s amazing how close a bond can form in just a few short months. We had always had a good relationship but now we are bonded, like a rider and a dragon. He is already task trained with a few things like med retrieval, crowd assistance, deep pressure therapy, and we’re currently working on alerting to certain behaviors from my anxiety. Shorsey baffles me with how intelligent he is both mentally and emotionally. He loves helping. The speed that he learns at has made this decision so easy. Once he is fully public access trained he will be a service dog. I also want to get him cleared after he’s two on his joints so I can use him not just as a psych service dog but a mobility service dog as well. It’s because of Shorsey that I never went on meds for my depression. If that doesn’t give you an idea of what a service dog actually does then I don’t know how else to explain it.

Grief is so weird

I like to imagine Tucker telling Shorsey

“She doesn’t need me anymore. She really needs you now, to help her. Please take care of her for me.”