Every day I grapple with the anxiety of living with a dog diagnosed with GME, and I’ve found the uncertainty to be the most difficult for me to manage. Monty is one of the lucky ones to have made it nearly 7 months without any symptom relapse and for that we are thankful beyond belief. There is however a constant cloud of doubt, suspicion, and fear hanging over our daily life. Seemingly insignificant events end up being run through a litany of logic and tests to the point of where I struggle to just let go and relish the moment or time for what it is. Case in point: today on our morning walk Monty ran full steam into a sidewalk patio chair seemingly oblivious to its existence. If you’ll remember back in July this was one of the initial symptoms which alerted us that something was very wrong, so this set me off on the crazy brain train for the rest of the morning trying to make connections and justifications that may or may not even exist; was this just a simple accident because of the partial blindness, or is this the start of a full on relapse? I’m not sure it’s possible to monitor his behavior any more closely, but you can be sure I’m keeping my eyes on him…
So if you have found this site because you are going through something similar, remind yourself you are doing the best you can for your companion. Be vigilant, but do not allow the fear and guilt to consume the precious gift of more time you have received.
