Update on my surgery and Zoey

It was a crazy week around here (aren't they all)!!!

Monday I was happy to get back to a somewhat normal routine with Halloween behind us. Tuesday was my surgery. I had to be up early to be at the surgery center at 8:00. I was ready to get the surgery behind me. I was there about 4.5 hours. Luckily they were able to remove all of the skin cancer. I have stitches from the middle of my nose down to my lip on one side. I was really swollen and pretty sore Tuesday, but it has improved each day. The hardest part has been the swelling of my lip making it hard to eat and talk! I tried to take it easy the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday, but that isn't always easy for me! I am grateful to some good friends who brought us dinners this week and helped with Maddy.
The other big news has to do with Zoey, Alex's service dog. Any of you who have followed my blog for a while know that we surprised Alex in December of 2015 with the news that we would be getting him a service dog, something he had asked for for quite some time. Zoey came to us in May 2016 through a trainer locally who had trained several service dogs to meet the needs of kids who didn't fit the mold of the large organizations (ie-seizures, diabetic alert dogs, etc) We struggled to coordinate training with that trainer and were largely left on our own. Last year they let us know that they were no longer going to be working with service dogs. We were upset, but given how fragile Alex's health was all of last year we just let it go. Zoey spent most of the last year living as a "regular" pet. Fast forward to last month, Alex's health has stabilized and he let me know he really wanted to finish training Zoey. I reached out to a friend and she knew of a trainer who trains dogs to detect low cortisol which was the main job we had wanted Zoey trained for. We met this trainer yesterday for her to evaluate Zoey and determine if she thought Zoey could do this work. She put Zoey through a number of tests, watched her with Alex and immediately picked up on Zoey's ability to detect when Alex isn't feeling well. I am thrilled to say that Zoey will be going off for 1-6 months of Training beginning December 3rd. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to do this on our own. I am doing something I have tried to avoid over the years...something I hate to do...I am asking for help. We have set up a fundraiser to help us raise the funds we need to make this happen for Alex. If you would like to help please click on the following link. If you are unable to contribute, please share and pray for us to be able to do this.
Help Zoey Serve Alex

Finally, we had some pictures taken of Mad for her 5th birthday. Here are some of my favorites:

Thank you for everyone who continues to love us, to support us, to pray for us.
Ali