Happy Friday everyone! As I mentioned in my introduction, we have had “quite a journey from the very beginning.” But where does this begin? Just like you, it begins with the medical side.  (My teenager has asked me to keep their real name private for now, so I am using Jake) It has been a lifelong (17 years of life) journey of figuring out diagnosis and learning to live with ever changing medical conditions.  How to navigate home, school, friends, public places and so much more.  There are two major diagnoses that affect him.  One is mental health, which includes anxiety, depression, and PTSD.  The other is called FND, which was a new diagnosis with symptoms presenting shortly before the age of 16.  FND is a neurological diagnosis and can be complex, depending on the person.  Basically, the brain is misfiring signals and the way Jake is affected is by any number of symptoms including, but not limited to, tics both motor and verbal, falling, trouble walking, can’t walk, tremors, seizures and even passing out.  There are days Jake can function well and there are days he cannot because the symptoms are present and seemingly take over.  The more complex the medical challenges became, the more hands on I became because of safety.  The problem? I now had at the time a 15 year old who lost their new found independence.  No more friends’ houses or parties without mom, routine doctor or dentist office where I stayed in the waiting room, going on field trips or church events without a medical plan and someone trained, just to name a few.  Something had to change.  Luckily, it hit me one day while he was petting a cat to calm himself down several months earlier when I was originally thinking of a dog for mental health.  I was thinking back and cats and dogs have always calmed the anxiety for Jake.  Now that we also had the diagnosis of FND I could not wait another minute.  This kid needs a service dog who could complete tasks and improve the quality of life for Jake. Through someone who knew someone at a local fair, I learned of a service dog trainer who would help us train a dog we already had.  At the time, the dog was my moms, but Jake already had a strong connection with Lucy.  There was a concern over cost, but I will cover that part in another post.  Everything fell into place.  We took Lucy in, began the training and it was amazing how quickly we learned that this was the absolute right decision for our family!