Do we really want to be invisible?

Invisibility. When I was little I used to think how cool would it be to be invisible. Harry Potter was a long way off from being written with his invisibility cloak, but who hasn't secretly wanted one of those cloaks. If we had one, when would we wear it? At the water cooler to hear what people think about us, or would we wear it to try and get away with things? The options are limitless. But lets go a little deeper, would we really want to be invisible?

Since we are nearing the end of Max's service dog training, we have been going into more stores lately. Many people see us and comment on what a great looking dog Max is(he is too if I don't say so myself!) or to ask if they could pet him. Many moms stop and explain to their children that he is a working dog and can't be petted. A few took the time to tell me about their dog experience(mostly those who had or have a boxer, boxer people are the coolest people and there is an immediate connection). Most people just smiled and said hello. But at every store we had entered, having Max opened the door for pleasantries. To be honest this is one of the reasons I wanted to have a service dog to be more social. After our last lesson, we thought we'd stop and get groceries and give Max some more practice. We shop at Publix and love it. We have 3 different ones we go to depending on where we are doing our errands. This particular day we were close to home so we went to Publix near a fairly large development. It's a very expensive development, almost it's own little city. We've been shopping there for years and never thought anything of it.

So in we go and for the first time ever, we were told we were not allowed to have a dog in the store. We told him he was a service dog and pointed to the patch on the vest. It wasn't so much in what he asked it was how. Then as we continued our shopping I noticed we were getting strange looks and some boarded on displeasure. By the time we were done, not a single person said a word. Many times I had to ask people to move their carts so Max and I could get through. I apologized and tried to sneak around. Not one person said oh sorry or anything. The final straw was on the way out. Standing between the automatic sliding doors, was a group of women and a few men just shooting the breeze. My husband asked them 3 times to excuse us but they continued to talk and ignored us. We decided to start walking through and they didn't move an inch. As I got even with them I spoke loudly, excuse the handicapped lady. They turned to look at me, decided I wasn't worth their time and turned back to their conversation.

Today I was invisible to many and it was not a nice feeling.

An Update

It's a month into football season and I have made every game so far! Although with the Bucs 0-4 this certainly would be the time to miss a game. Fortunately PennState rebounded after their loss to Iowa(second in a row, 6 losses out of the last 7) but their season is still alive. We proudly fly our banners on Saturday and Sunday. To me they are a beacon that shows there is still more than illness going on in this house.

Max is almost finished with his training! He got his CGC certification(canine good citizen) so if I am ever able I can use him as a therapy dog and take him to visit the elderly or sick kids. The training has been hard on him and me as well. We now can go into stores and and such places and our next challenge is to try a restaurant. That should be interesting!

We had a great time at Rockmere and I actually stayed up there an extra week kind of like a trial for next year when I hope to be up there for a few months. Andy will fly in for long weekends and of course his vacation. It is so rejuvenating for me up there, and Andy loves watching the birds, especially the humming birds. We put out bird feeders and this year he put up a bird house with the hopes that next summer we will have some renters. We are both very excited about next summer and once football season is over will be biding our time.

I had thought I was doing as well as possible with the sarc and the chemo shrunk one of the large lymph nodes in my chest, I have more scar tissue which is not good and I found out how not good last week. I had my appointment with my pulmo and after talking he wanted to do a test, the 6 minute walk which gives my oxygen saturation at activity. I was 1 percentage point from needing oxygen. I wasn't expecting that at all. He really wanted me to be able to have it but trust me I was not disappointed. The last thing I want to be doing is carting that stupid tank behind me. He gave me a script for a wheel chair so I won't have to walk far if we go to an event or fair or something like that. The wheel chair is bad enough but I know I need it for those special occasions. If we would have had one for the Superbowl, our experience would have been so much better.

It was a slap in the face. I had been doing good for a few months and we were doing things "normals" do, taking a vacation, going out to dinner, running errands, it came very close to feeling like I was living a normal life again. And then one appointment later, my illness lets me know that it is here, waiting on a whim to take back over my existence. For me it was the final confirmation. I will die of this disease. It may not be tomorrow or next year or 10 years form now but I know what is going to kill me. I don't want to sound dramatic because I really had hope that I still could have a life and even die of something completely unrelated to this disease. But I do not believe that anymore. I can still make the most of what my life is, but I can no pretend that maybe this has been a bad dream that I could wake up from.

Gee, other than that, not much else going on!!! Where would be without humor?! Peace!