The Dog Who Saved Me

The Dog Who Saved Me

(Intro image: a soft photo of Desi’s collar, paw print, or sunlight through a window — something quiet, not posed.)

I mentioned losing the love of my life, Desi Lou Arnez, a few posts back. I think this is finally the right time to find the words I’ve never been able to find — about the little bitty dog who saved my life.

It’s strange to sit here, tears in my eyes, trying to write about him while “puppy music” plays for Waylon, who’s learning to self-soothe in his kennel right behind me. I wish they could have met each other.

When Life Fell Apart

It’s always a long story, isn’t it? How we end up where we are. How the tragedies find us.

When I lost my home of seven years to toxic mold, I was already stretched thin. I agreed to help a friend in their kitchen for a while, trying to hold myself together. Another young woman who worked there kept insisting I come stay with her until I figured things out.

So I did. I hired junk removal companies, threw away nearly everything I owned, and took Desi across the river, praying that being away from the mold would give him more time. His congestive heart failure had worsened, but he loved that new place — the new friends, the cats, the fresh air.

And then, life did what it does. It broke again.

Two weeks before my thirty-seventh birthday, everything collapsed — except this time, I got to be with Desi every day, the way I always wished I could be. Within a month, one of the cats attacked him. A big tom — almost twenty pounds heavier — and my six-pound baby never stood a chance. He fought so hard. We spent a night at the emergency vet. They stabilized him, and he came home.

We spent Christmas in my hometown — his favorite place. Ham steak. Walks. Sunshine. His parks. His people. And then, we said our see-you-agains.

We built a little box from old barn wood and buried him on his favorite back road, where he could see the river and feel the sun all day long.

The world went black.

The Aftermath

In that kind of finality, everything else feels pointless. I was taking care of the young woman I lived with, applying for jobs, interviewing for positions I almost got but never did. I kept the apartment clean and made meals because if I stopped, I think I might have stopped breathing too.

I’ve always been someone who keeps going if someone else needs me. It’s a survival skill — and a curse.

When another disaster hit a few months later, I went into a full C-PTSD spiral. Rolling panic attacks. Sleepless nights. The same suffocating feeling I’d had when my life burned down the first time. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t stop crying.

I scoured the internet for what was wrong with me, desperate to know if I was “too far gone.” I did the stupid breathing exercises. I cut sugar. I ate soup and bone broth and supplements. I bought a vibration plate, a weighted vest, a weighted blanket. I prayed. I sobbed. I took Epsom salt baths until my skin hurt.

The detox was intense — it had to be. My body had survived for years on diet pills, cigarettes, Diet Coke, and espresso. When I read that anger was tied to liver stagnation, it hit me in the chest. My body, my hormones, my emotions — all clogged. And so, I started over again.

At the very bottom, the last thing I wanted to do was choose myself. But I didn’t even recognize who I was anymore.

The Spark

When I used to run my businesses, I talked about finding the joy — and when you couldn’t find it, being the joy.
But there was no joy left. None.

And yet, even at my worst, I’m stubborn.
I decided that couldn’t be the story.

I couldn’t just die.

So I started reading. Neuroscience. Nervous systems. How mineral deficiencies make healing harder. I cried until I couldn’t move. I listened to bird sounds for hours and tapped and prayed.

And then — the smallest spark.

The Puppy

My very wonderful man friend started gently saying, “Maybe it’s time for a puppy.”

I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think I deserved another chance to love something that much. But he showed me a photo of a little dog from a small town with a sad story, and my heart skipped for the first time in months.

Waylon came in like an actual wrecking ball — mostly in the best ways. Of course, puppies are chaos. But he was joy incarnate.

Like me, he was afraid of everything. And so, I had to be brave — for him.

Every day, he made me a little braver. Sometimes he made me laugh so hard it startled me — then I’d realize that was my laugh. Mine.

The first few weeks, I grieved Desi harder than ever before. But I realized that all the love I thought I hadn’t gotten to give him was now being poured into Waylon. And that brought peace.

Waylon gets me outside in the morning sun, even when I don’t want to. He makes me walk laps instead of scrolling. He reminds me how much I want to live somewhere quiet again — in the country, where we can nap in the sunshine.

Out of everything I’ve lost, losing Desi was the hardest.
He was the greatest joy I’ve ever known.
The most unconditional love.
The reason I stayed on this planet.

And without him, I would never have been ready for Waylon — never been the soft place this new little soul needed to land.

Letting It Out

Now, as I’m writing this, sobbing again, I can feel something loosening. Maybe this is what it means to release it — to finally let it move out of my body instead of keeping it locked behind the ribcage.

Because when you’ve spent your whole life compartmentalizing, you forget how important it is to get it out.

And maybe that’s what nervous system healing really is —
feeling safe enough to tell the truth about what hurts,
and not staying so locked down
that you never let love in again.