He's Doing His Job!

He's doing his job, and it's working!  Look at that happy girl!  Sarah has been fighting pretty severe depression and anxiety for a while now and that includes an inability on her part to sleep.  Boy, nothing makes anxiety and depression worse than never sleeping.  While we are working with several doctors including a sleep doctor, we decided to try using a dog to help her.  The reason we got Achilles was to see if having a dog and training it to do some emotional support or service dog services could help her.  The medications she can take are addictive and interact unpredictably and we would prefer to use as few as possible.  If Achilles can calm her enough to sleep without taking more meds, then we will be thrilled!  I am happy to report that Achilles is happy to be Sarah's buddy and sleep with her at night (and sometimes during the day too).  Sarah has been falling asleep before 10 pm and waking on her own around 7 am.  She is feeling much better and we are so excited.  I was hopeful, but did not expect such quick and perfect results.  I hope this continues!  This guy is such an answer to prayers for our family.  He has even started noticing if her mood starts to go south and immediately goes to her and nudges her with his nose.  That is something we were hoping to train him to do in the future so we are so giddy about him showing a natural instinct to do that on his own.

Sarah is feeling ill today.  We are weening her to a lower dose of antidepressants as she has been having some pretty severe sores showing up on her body and has periods of swift mood swings where she is inconsolably sad.  She is on the maximum dosage of her antidepressant now that her ADHD medication has been changed and working well, I think it is causing more harm than good to be on such a strong medication.  It is an addictive medication so decreasing dosage must be done slowly and there is some pain involved.  She is handling it well and if you know her, will definitely recognize that even though she is in pain, this is the happiest we have seen her face in 17 months.  

On another note, it is Sunday and I think it is an appropriate time for me to express how grateful I am for my family.  Heavenly Father knows me and knows that being bored is torture for me.  We have been blessed with such a fun family.  I love all of their personalities so much!  It isn't easy keeping up with them, but what excitement and joy they bring to my life everyday!  Even though it is a bit warmer out today than it has been, I still don't want to go out much and I'm blessed to be inside with these guys and their loving personalities.  I'm never short on excitement or kisses in this house.