Everything Sven

03/06/2026

FEB & MARCH - Struggles with migraines took on a whole new level of madness recently. I had no physical energy from all the shoveling and the cold weather this year was murderous. I have been short of breath, insomnia, etc.

Without going into a lot of detail here and for brevity's sake, I'll just say I have troubles with Thyroid, Lupus, Migraines, Fibromyalgia, Anemia and 4 serious cancer scares that left me going to oncology & hematology for 3 years. A medication was causing the anemia. Lupus causes Intra Retinal Fluid in my eyes. Something I've been seeing a specialist for. I don't sleep a lot due to insomnia, sometimes when I do get sleep my eyes have a bit more fluid than usual. Slow drainage. My eyes are also a bit slow focusing from nearsighted to farsighted and vice versa.

A few times over the summer while taking Sven out for his potty breaks, my eyes would haze over and get all rainbow-ish. I thought well I just woke up, it's bright out here, and fluffed it off. Turns out that is a dead ringer sign for Glaucoma, unbeknownst to me. I had suspected I had it already due to eye pressures in my eyes at exams, but I had a doctor that wouldn't prescribe eye drops to treat it. Her standard of care was different than some other specialists and I've already dismissed her as my doctor over this and in the process of insurance referral's to a new one.

Anyway, it had all the makings of an impending disaster.

Prior to any of this - all month I was having problems with eggs, it seemed I was getting sick each time I had them, either at home or as a breakfast sandwich. I couldn't figure out the source but threw away an eggs at home thinking maybe they're old or bad. They smelled like sulfur, stood up on the float test. A lot of times food will bother me and i go for a stint not being able to eat certain things. I somewhat assumed this was another episode of that happening.

Well, Towards the end of the month of Feb. I had a migraine that almost did me in. It started in one eye and back of the then before moving the other eye. Something that never has happened before to me involving both eyes at the same time.

I couldn't see, pain from light was excruciating, my balance was off, i was constantly dizzy and exhausted, couldn't keep my eyes open. Nauseated, I took tums to maybe lower acid and avoid vomiting. This went on for days. Pain was intense and everyone was saying go to the ER, only I couldn't drive and Sven was also home sick. The thought of putting him in a kennel wile he's sick was just too much to bear. Nobody knows him like I do, after all.

I took some OTC/PM cough medicine and immuno-support vitamins and tried to sleep it off. I didn't have any new numbness, tingling, slurring and didn't think it was a stroke, albeit Dr. Google did.

I didn't really feel as if I needed EMS with all the bells and whistles, but undoubtedly needed a medical visit but with all the storms it just didn't seem feasible either. I decided where I wasn't continuing to get worse and worse, that I could manage being home and able to watch over Sven. As I really couldn't and shouldn't attempt that either. I needed a bandana over one eye and sunglasses just to minimize the pain from light. I did a lot of voice activated AI Dr. Google searches just to be sure. I recalled from working in the medical field sensitivity to light was a serious symptom. I'm looking up Botulism, Meningitis, Stroke, Anemia, Tumor, etc. Checking and ticking off boxes just to be sure. Calling Grammy & Grampy, saying don't drive here in the bad weather, I'm fine, well unbeknownst I really wasn't fine and could have lost my eye sight, but fine enough to totter around the apartment in the dark with the dog and my walker for the night.

Ultimately, aside from having the migraine, I was taking a daily supplement that had B!2 in it along with generic Nyquil for a night or two and that was causing problems with increasing the pressure in my eyes and is contra indicated if you have Glaucoma, making everything so much worse for me. Yikes. Talk about an ah-ha moment. And that really needs to be on a warning label on every bottle manufactured. Jesus F**k. RFK ought to be worrying about that rather than Dunkin's.

Once I stopped taking it, the pain and pressure started to recede. Holy Wow. Amazing. Thank God I checked with Dr. Google or I'd have kept taking it.

And now checking in with P*P, it's agreed I need appointments with a new eye specialist for eye drops to manage the underlying glaucoma, something my former eye specialist refused to do.

We bumbled and tottered around together in the dark for the last several days and are starting to improve. I'm lucky I live in a day and an age where I can order line and have things delivered to us and didn't have to go out for anything. I'm thankful spring is on the way and temps are expected to be in the 60s next week and will finally melt some of this snow. I have a mountain of laundry to do, but we'll survive.

As for the cause or treatment of the extreme exhaustion, same as it ever was more tests needed.

For now it's just one day at a time and a huge learning curve that eventually will lead to a solution. As is the case most of the time with me, I'll go in for MRI for arthritis, come out with Lupus, get a scan for torn muscles, come out with tumors. Sometimes treatment of one aliment can save you from another. In this case, blindness.

p.s. for those curious, the pain was from fluid and pressure in the eyeball and my eyes were stuck being dilated.



A few pics below.

03/02/2026

Bath Day again already. -

02/24/2026

Happy 7th Birthday to the bestest goodest boy in the world !!! I wouldn't change a thing, and I hope we get another 7 yrs together.

The storm put a wrinkle into plans this week, but we'll go shopping for gifts & treats real soon.

02/24/2026

Well, we survived Thankfully snow totals were a bit less than predicted and we didn't lose power here, a lot of towns surrounding us did.

The windows were shellacked in snow paste yesterday but seem to be melting today thankfully. I had a migraine with vomiting again, rapid changes in the barometric pressures can sometimes do that. The snow froze in front of the doors trapping us inside again for over 24 hrs. Finally got out this morning to clear the car off only to discover the snowbanks are at least 7 ft outside our front windows.

Also, pretty miffed about our HP space being swiped by a neighbor that really didn't need it. She's been abandoning her car for weeks at a time in all the freshly shoveled spaces, which is really rude considering she backed in and isn't even using the handicap hashtag area next the car properly, it's supposed to be on the side of the car or van you exit on, literally rendering it useless and pointless I, especially when she could have just stayed in her own space all along because she hasn't moves a snowflake herself all winter or made other arrangements if disabled. Could she be any ruder when the space doesn't even belong to her building. We live in an HP unit, the spaces are designated for our building. It'd be like us going around the corner and taking another building's space. How does Sven get out of the car to assist me when cars are on either side of us. If that doesn't frost your butt, she had the gaul to take the HP placard out of the car to go out shopping with her daughter, which is illegal if you're parked in HP, private property or not you can be ticketed. And she had the nerve to give my Dad the side eye. Unreal.

02/21/2026

Ugh! Here comes another wallop!!! Yes, we're New Englanders and used to it. But this is a lot, we've already had 3+ feet this season. We're right on the 16 +/- line between Newburyport and Gloucester.

Eric Fisher has your latest weather forecast.

02/14/2026

Happy Valentine's Day. - We didn't do too much today, we dropped off a card and a few treats to Grammy & Grampy, but she went off visiting for the day. We stayed for a bit and shared a pizza with Grampy. I came home and cooked a few different meals for the week and did some online shopping. Sven enjoyed a day off and some snooze time resting from a bit of a doggie cold and/or some allergies to his meds. (no worries he's seen the Vet Dr.) His Paw blister is healing up and he's due for a nail trim again. And we got him a few new fleece fluffies for his bed.

02/11/2026

Splish, splash... it was time for a bath today. He looks so thrilled, eh?

02/08/2026

Here we go, super bowl 60 is under way!

02/08/2026

Sven's not a foster trained service dog, but nonetheless this is so true...

When you see a Service Dog working in public—calm, focused, unbothered by noise, people, carts, or chaos—you see the result.

What you don’t see is the two years behind that moment.

You don’t see the thousands of quiet repetitions.
The hours of practice.
The patience it took to teach calm where excitement once lived.

You see a dog lying peacefully under a restaurant table.
You don’t see the countless meals spent training that behavior—sitting through clattering dishes, dropped food, loud laughter, and curious strangers. Training a dog to ignore everything so they can be everything for one person.

You see a dog walking confidently through a store.
You don’t see the early mornings and late nights spent in places like Walmart and Target—not for attention, not to bother anyone—but to prepare a dog to one day guide someone safely through the same aisles. To help them find what they need. To pick up what they drop. To give them dignity without asking for help.

You see a polished working dog.
You don’t see the puppy.

You don’t see the foster family who opened their home and their heart. The family who donated their time, their sleep, their energy—feeding, grooming, socializing, teaching basic life skills. Loving a puppy fully, knowing one day they would have to give them back. Not because it was easy—but because it mattered.

You don’t see the moment that puppy leaves the foster home and returns to the organization.
You don’t see the trainer who takes over—building confidence, sharpening skills, shaping purpose. Turning potential into reliability. Curiosity into calm. Drive into service.

You don’t see the setbacks.
The slow days.
The days when progress feels invisible.

But all of it matters.

Because one day, that dog will change someone’s life.

They will help someone see their way through a store.
They will retrieve what hands cannot.
They will ground someone when the world feels overwhelming.
They will give independence back to someone who lost it.
They will create freedom where there once was limitation.

Service Dogs are not accidental.
They are built—with time, consistency, compassion, and community.

What you see is a dog doing a job.
What you don’t see is the investment made so someone else can live with more confidence, more safety, and more hope.

That quiet dog at your feet?
They carry years of work in their calm.
They carry love in their training.
They carry purpose in every step.

And sometimes—
They carry a little wiggle of hope,
Changing lives without ever saying a word.

02/06/2026

LMAO! Fortunately, we don't have space over our cabinets here. Can't imagine that happening, at Sven's max weight I think they'd fall off the walls. Luckily only once... back when he was about 2 y/o, he took a running leap over my giant marble coffee table, flew over me on the couch and trampolined up onto an end table to look out the window at a neighbor of ours he'd met as a puppy inside of PetSmart. Oy!

You just never know where you will find your dane.

02/06/2026

Luncheon with Grammy - I had to pick something up at Target, so didn't make sense to go across town to another place for lunch. The other two places I'd though of Grampy said might be too close quarters for a giant dog to maneuver around. So we opted for spacious Panera.

This time it went a bit different, Grammy had a major toothache, so after eating on one side of her mouth, which didn't go over too well either, we went to get some Orajel, and had Grampy call the dentist for an appt ASAP.

Sven was a magnificent, good boy, per usual. Another working dog came in, an ESA trying to get away with being a SD. It was a smaller kittle breed on a long retractable lead, not exactly good SD etiquette right then and there - as the owner/handler was being a bit of an ass - teasing, testing and daring me a bit by not retracting it to what's considered a more controllable length and just walking by or going about their business. And of course everyone was on bated breath just watching things unfold, waiting to see if the 'lil ole yip yapper would get in Sven's face or not. Sigh. It came close but Sven just ignored him and thankfully they passed by without incident.

Behind grammy were some Great Dane lovers. We had a bit of a chat with them and then held courts for some photos with other marveling patrons. (i.e. it's like meeting Scooby-Doo or Marmaduke in person) Everyone giggled, when a person held up a phone, and Sven sat up to pose for it. He's really used to it like a hand signal when he sees the phones coming out. LOL

I broke the strap on one of his booties, hopefully I can fix them. Thankfully I had a package of galoshes in the go bad and we made due with those for the day. Just enough to protect from salt and still give some floor traction. I'm not a superfan of them, they are snug and can hurt circulation, but it wasn't a long outing and we kept a close eye on them.

Stopped for a few we Superbowl snacks and headed for home. Wind Chills here are expected to be subzero, and it's just way too cold to be out and about this weekend.