Welcome

Hello and welcome to A Chronic Life with Pets. My name is Renee. In this blog I'll be talking about chronic illness (daily life and coping with with chronic illness and disability) and pets. Animals are my passion. Before chronic illness changed my life, I had planned on being a veterinarian. I went to college and got a degree in Biology. Chronic illness made attending veterinary school physically impossible for me. Instead, I pursued working as a veterinary technician/assistant and then went on to being a dog trainer.

During my sophomore year of high school I came down with a case of mono that changed my life. I've struggled with health issues since then. Currently, I'm diagnosed with Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) which has been recently renamed Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID), endometriosis/ adenomyosis, and a whole bunch of food allergies and intolerances. I meet the diagnostic criteria for Postural Orthostatic Intolerance Syndrome (POTS), a form of dysautonomia, which is a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system that controls the automatic functions of your body, but I haven't yet been diagnosed. I'll soon be pursuing specialty care to work on getting a diagnosis for that or whatever this dysregulation might be. I also have allergy issues and possibly Sjogren's, which I'll soon be seeing a rheumatologist to try to figure out.

Through it all, I've never stopped loving animals. My chronic illness issues led me to discover the world of service dogs, dogs specially trained to perform tasks or work that mitigates a person's disability. I'm currently assisted by two owner-trained service dogs, meaning I trained the dogs myself to assist me. Malcolm, a German Shepherd, is trained to assist me with balance and mobility. He accompanies me when I go out in public and works at home. His main tasks are momentum pull, counter-balance, retrieves, and medical alert. My other service dog, Penny, a Cattle Dog/Basenji (best guess as she was a shelter dog found as a stray), is a medical alert dog who works in my home. I'll talk more about those tasks and a wide variety of service dog issues in future posts.

Malcolm (German Shepherd) and Penny (Cattle Dog/Basenji)

My husband Paul and I also currently share our lives with two cats, Kevin and Sully. We adopted Sully from a shelter when we lived in North Carolina. Kevin came to us as a stray shortly after our cat Mike passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Kevin basically adopted us. :-)

Kevin (orange tabby in the bucket) and Sully (brown tabby and white cat) stalking and birdwatching. Kevin's favorite spot to birdwatch and stalk is in the bucket.

I also have a passion for guppies. I'm currently breeding wild type guppies (commonly seen as feeder guppies) and some wild type/fancy cross guppies. I'll be posting updates about Renee's Guppy Grotto (as I affectionately call my 3 guppy tanks) here too.

I'll be posting about living with chronic illness and a wide variety of pet and animal related topics. I hope you'll join me!