I Should Be.....

It's Christmas time. This is normally my favorite time of the year. Yeah, even more than Halloween. I love Christmas.
I love waking up Christmas day and having cinnamon rolls, and opening presents, and giving presents. Wrapping boxes, adding bows. Excitement. Family. Joy.

I am having a hard time feeling joyful this year. I should be feeling elated! Apollos got his new job, so that is making life a bit easier. Sure, it isn't enough to be entirely comfortable on, but we're not struggling as much as before. But it isn't enough to deal with the Boomer problem. This continues to fill me absolute dread. I can't wake up with a smile on my face about how beautiful the snow is outside, or how crisp and clean the air smells, or how excited I am to host games for you, my community. I can barely get the strength to even stream because most of the time, the time you don't see or hear me, I'm actually just crying softly and quietly. Alone. It makes me feel silly too. He's a dog, dogs get sick. Dogs get old. This happens.

It's just not supposed to happen for him yet.

His disease is stress related, so I can't even lean on him like I normally do. He's an emotional support dog, who is very good at his job. He knows when I'm upset, and he's very good at calming me down. But if stress and worry make him sicker, I can't show him how I feel if its anything other than happy. So now, I'm masking even around my little moon.

Collectively, already, just to find out and confirm what he has, we've spent $881.61. Money that I didn't have and that thankfully you guys, (but mostly Megan) were able to donate and here now, the NEXT round of tests to actually begin treating to see if it'll even work is $460.
$1300 so far and we haven't even broached the subject of potential surgery if the medication isn't working properly.

At this point, do I give up? Just give him whatever food he wants that isn't poison, and let him live out his next year suffering but blissfully unaware and happy? Or do I go into remarkable debt for tests, and then paying 60-120$ a month of medication if it works for the next 5 years?

That aside, my doctors don't know why my legs swell. It isn't any of the things they have thought and tested for. My headaches haven't been getting much better at all yet. So hopefully this Emgality starts working next month. Further, our snap benefits are getting turned off this January, allegedly because we aren't eligible anymore. Even though, their eligibility list has 3 things on it that make us qualify. So now I get to call and fight with them over this so that we can at least continue to eat, or add that to the list of things we can't afford to do anymore even with Apollos' job.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk I guess, sorry if it was a little dark. I'm really hoping these pick up into a happier tone soon.