I’ve written blogs about this in the past, my daughter at 17 takes on the bulk of the responsibility. It’s not something a 17-year-old signs up for, and she’s been doing it for years.  My mother takes on the brunt of the emotional side of my multiple sclerosis. Another topic of my blogs that you could find throughout. My step dad takes on the emotional backlash of what my mom takes on, breaking his heart. Plus he’s the one taking me to the city for doctors appointments or responding to the middle of the night phone calls. My dad and step mom, now that I  write a blog, understand even more what I go through daily. They both read my blog each day, feeling helpless because they live far and there isn’t much help they can give.  They both send me resource links, hospitals, articles, or news, anything they think that might cure me or make me better.   My aunt and uncle,who live down the block, who  treat me like their third child; always worried about me, always checking in with me, always angry if I don’t call him to say I need help. Everyday my MS affects someone, somehow.   Yesterday it affected someone else, someone you wouldn’t realize.  Yesterday it affected my puppy.

Multiple sclerosis affected my dogs throughout the years. I used to be the main person that walked the dogs, gave them exercise. As my MS got worse it became my daughter’s  responsibility. Something she really hate to do.  I would take them out on the scooter when I could, but that was a whole ordeal. At the time I had my English bulldog and my French bulldog. The French was house trained but the English had to walk.  I couldn’t run around with either dog, my role was to be the lap provider or the person that they cuddled with. The good  thing is that the dogs that I had were good types of dogs for someone with MS. Even though the English had to go out for walks he was a really big couch potato. But my MS really did affect them as well. Now I have a puppy and the MS had a huge impact on her last night.

I had a tough MS day yesterday. I was tired. My legs were tired. My hands were tired.  I hobbled myself into the kitchen to take my medicine and I dropped it.  Puppy right at my heels,  I tried to picked up the pills as fast as I could but fast and ms don’t go together. I thought I had them all and then I saw her chewing. I quickly try to figure out which pill she could’ve possibly had. I thought it might be my baclofen, a muscle relaxer, it was the only one I didn’t 100% remember seeing.  I knew from past experience with my other frenchie, how to induce vomiting.  So I gave the puppy 2 teaspoons of peroxide, would you believe that’s what they used to induce vomiting in a dog?  My 30 pound french dosage is 1 1/2 Tablespoons so I cut it in half.  It took about 10 minutes before she threw up, I didn’t see the pill but at least I know I did the right thing. Obviously, throughout the night I kept checking on her, and luckily she’s fine. Maybe she didn’t even eat one and she just found something else on the floor it is very possible. It was just one other way one of my MS symptoms affected someone else.