About a year ago, my 5-year-old perfectly healthy French Bulldog, Caymus, suffered a spinal disc back injury (from jumping off the bed) and ended up needing emergency spinal cord surgery that left him paralyzed. My husband and I were in shock and quickly had to scramble to figure out how to best care for a now paralyzed dog that couldn’t walk or use the bathroom on his own. Looking back, I realize that the whole experience taught me several unexpected lessons about life.
There can always be a new normal
While poor Caymus was the one who had to completely readjust to life with only the use of his two front legs, David and I also had to rearrange our lives in order to care for a paralyzed dog that needed almost constant supervision and frequent diaper changes. We don’t have children but overnight was handed a dog in a diaper that basically required the care of a human baby. Never in a million years did we expect to be changing dog diapers on a daily basis, but today that’s our “new normal” and we don’t even think twice about it. It’s now just a part of our daily routine. You can get some really good and secure male and female dog diapers if you know where to look, you want to give the best to your pet and make them as comfortable as you can. In life, circumstances can change in an instant and while overwhelming at first, you’ll be surprised to find how quickly you will adjust to a new normal and continue on as before. Human (and dog!) resiliency is much stronger than we realize.
Inspiration can be found in unexpected places
One of my fears after learning that Caymus would be paralyzed was that this experience would change his little happy go lucky personality. I shouldn’t have worried because as soon as he came out of recovery, he was the same exact dog as before, just crawling around instead of walking, and happy as can be. Once he was fitted for a set of wheels, he ran rolled all over the place and played the same as if nothing had ever happened. Since then, we’ve met so many people who are brought to tears by his positive attitude regardless of being “different”, and claimed that it inspires and reminds them of situations they’ve had to deal with. We’ve also met several handicapped people in wheelchairs who were overjoyed to meet a dog in a similar situation as them. I never expected a little dog to touch so many people in this way, but it just goes to show that inspiration can be found in unexpected places, and is sometimes more approachable coming from an animal than a person. Which leads me to my last point…
Maybe we should all strive to be more like dogs
There have been many times that I’ve been stressed about something and looked over at a perfectly content Caymus to realize its really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, and I should just let it go. Granted, dogs are blessed with much simpler lives than most of us (#jealous) but they possess many traits that would be beneficial for humans to emulate more often. Unwavering loyalty, positivity, patience, joy at the small things and love are all qualities we could use more of in our lives. Having a paralyzed dog certainly drives these points home every day, but all dogs offer us so many great lessons on how to better treat ourselves and others!
