My son has that tall lean British Rocker look. Add in his brains and his 100 lb mobility support German Shepherd Lucy and the girls fawn..and he says he’ll consider dating when he’s about 25 and girls have chilled out. No drama for him!
The sense of humor is key to our resilience. My father and his sister both lost their sight to hereditary early onset Macular degeneration. They were both in their 20’s. I suspect EDS has something to do with it also. Our family uses humor to deal. Our blind leading the blind jokes are hilarious to us and hopefully not too offensive to others.
When my son was being tested for Marfan we were making lots of giant and alien jokes. One day that week I went to look for a missing cat of ours at the Humane Society. When I walked in there was a big cage with a big sign that said special needs puppy..can only be placed in special families..I laughed out loud because that’s how we got Macintosh our 3 legged Border Collie. No one would take him because he wasn’t perfect…You can imagine how quickly my kids said he’s the one! So I looked in the cage and lo and behold there was an Australian Cattledog puppy with dwarfism staring back at me. She was one of two dwarfs in a litter of 6 puppies. It was such a rare phenomenon that MSU Veterinary College did a complete work up on her. The prognosis was that they had no idea what would happen internally as she grew or how damaged her legs would be. She went home with me that day and I handed her to my son and said I thought if you were going to be a Marfan giant you should have a dwarf for a canine best friend. By the end of the evening she had been named Qubit..a small unit of measurement and something else in physics I don’t understand lol. So our sense of humor and a healthy dose of animal therapy has been how we cope. When my son got his diagnosis and there were serious concerns about his mobility he decided to get a puppy and train his own service dog. What an amazing way to cope. That’s that driven thing I see in EDSers..when they have a plan look out…
So life gets lousy and medical bills get high, but there is always a joke around here and you can’t help but smile when a 3 legged Border Collie and a dwarf Blue Heeler decide to play tag.