Photo by ArtAndBeyond
(Photo Description: Service Dog Don stands on his back legs, placing his front paws on Codee’s lap while she sits in her wheelchair. They are gazing into each other’s eyes with the forest surrounding them.)
Which one is better? I almost fell off my seat when I was asked this on Twitter recently. I had never really thought about it before, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out the answer and it’s a little complicated. Because there’s no right or wrong.
It all depends on personal circumstances as well as preference. I am no doctor or occupational therapist, but I have enough personal experience that allows me to share with you some of the aspects envolved in making the right decisions.
There are a few questions you need to concider. What exactly do you need help with? Is there any equipment or assistance tool available to help you where you need help? What can a service dog do? What does a district nurse do?
In my situation I am faced with phyiscal limitations and limited energy. Everything I do costs three times as much energy as it would a healthy person. I need someone or something to help me with the things that cost the most energy so that I have energy over to do the rest, that includes fun things and I need to be able to get through a day without needing multiple naps.
There are a number of tools that can help me to a certain extent. A rollator, a helping hand (a device with a gripper at the end wich is controlled by a trigger to pick things up), a shower chair, a toilet chair, a rolling saddle chair and a stairlift. These are great and I use all of them daily. They enable me to do tasks I otherwise couldn’t do independently, but they don’t help me preserve energy.
A service dog can do a number of things depending on what they’re trained for and how they are trained. There are guide dogs that help the blind and visually impaired navigate their surroundings. Especially when outside. Therapy dogs help with a number of cognitive difficulties including PTSD and Autism. Medical alert dogs are trained to alert for things like seizures and low blood sugar and then there are ADL dogs that assist with tasks around the house. They can follow a vast ammount of commands from picking objects up from the floor or opening doors and drawers, to dressing and undressing or bringing you a bottle of water from the fridge. Oh, and let’s not forget the hearing dogs, they are trained to alert their handlers to sounds they can’t hear. Including danger sounds such as a fire alarm.
Owning a service dog comes with responsibility though. They need food, water, grooming, play time, regular training to practice things they don’t always need to assist with daily, and walkies. If they have to potty at 3am, you’re going to need to get out of your bed at 3am and take them out.
There are however, a couple extra advantages that come as extras along with the help a dog gives you. They’re great to cuddle with and are always there to listen when you need to talk. Plus they’re not restricted to a schedule. You can ask them for help whenever you need it, you don’t have to wait and they’re eager to go out on adventures with you at any time you feel like it.
District nurses can do a few extra things that a dog would struggle with. Mainly because a nurse has fingers and thumbs whereas a dog doesn’t. For example, my ex service dog would have been able to give me a bottle of shower gel or shampoo while I’m taking a shower. The district nurses actually wash me and put the shampoo on my head. You’ll never hear me complain about the free head massage I get every time they wash my hair. They’re great listeners, but they can also give answers, which sometimes leads to great problem solving advice. They put my socks on my feet for me – I’ve never met a dog that can do that! One of the biggest advantages of having a nurse for me, is that they can do some of the things a doctor’s assistent or nurse in a hospital can do. Having them check my blood pressure and help me measure my blood sugar has already saved me a number of trips to the doc’s office and I feel having them there slightly reduces the likelyhood that I could end up in hospital. The simple act of them regularly checking blood pressure means we can immediately get it taken care of if it’s too high, versus ending up in hospital because it got too high and nobody noticed.
The obvious disadvantage is that they work on a schedule and you have to wait your turn before you can get help. I can call them if I need help though and I wouldn’t have to wait too long. But they won’t come running every time I drop something on the floor or struggle to open a door. If I want to go out on an adventure, I have to plan around their schedule and if I need that to change because of a medical appointment, it’s important to communicate that in advance so they have time to fix their schedule.
If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know that I made the decision to hand in my service dog and let him retire with another family because I became too sick to care for him. A few months later, I became a patient under the care of local district nurses. For me, this is the right choice. It wouldn’t be fair for me to keep a service dog here when I can’t give him what he needs. The nurses do a fantastic job of helping me and I manage to preserve enough energy for other things, like writing blogs such as this one.
There are occasions where I think ‘dang, I could use the help from a service dog right now’, but those moments are rare and it mostly happens when I drop something on the floor that I can’t reach to pick up. The helping hand I mentioned above, isn’t the easiest tool to use when you can’t always see what you’re trying to grab. There are always solutions for my dropsies though, sometimes it can wait until someone is available to help me get it, or I can kick it across the floor to a place where I can sit in a low seat and reach down to get it. Having disabilities makes you very creative in problem solving. The biggest thing I miss about having my dog, is the phyiscal contact I could get from him. It provided many relaxing moments and often helped reduce my phyiscal pain. I haven’t quite found an alternative solution for that yet.
If I’m honest, a combination of nurses and service dog would be my idea of a perfect world but life doesn’t always work the way you want it to. Therefore it’s important to learn to problem solve and work with what you do have in a positive way. When it comes to getting the help you need, making the right decision isn’t always easy but once you’ve made it, you’ll realise the benefits give you a whole new outlook on life.
DonnieTown 