I am a 45 year old grandmother who thought life was going great. I had a good job that I enjoyed. It was stressful but I loved the people that I worked with. My second job was hosting karaoke shows with Anderson Entertainment sometimes upwards of five nights a week and loving every minute of it. Our children were grown all but one. Then tragedy struck and we lost our eldest son to su***de in 2014.
None of us were ever the same after that. We continued to go through our routines and we did attend counseling. But still there is nothing that can fix that pain. Long story short. Severe depression from not only that but, the loss of a home, the loss of my grandmother, our marriage barely survived, severe auto accident and loss of job after 18 years, just to name a few things. All in less than two years. All these things and other traumas caused me to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder with early onset Alzheimer's. So now I stay at home most of the time afraid to go out because I might get lost. Forget where I live, forget friends and family, do something that I will have zero clue that I'm doing or saying. There are all sorts of things. I have someone watching me all the time because I fall often. I could get hurt. I leave burners on and burn meals. I forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it. I forget my medication. All of these things cause extreme depression and social anxiety. I don't handle losing my independence and my memory very well. Not to mention my speech. An Alzheimer's Service dog can assist me with so many things. This is where Mack comes in. I began looking into service dogs seriously when it really sank in that this condition had no cure. I know what service dogs can do for people. I used to volunteer at Canine Companions for Independence when I was a young girl. The breed that I needed and chose was the Great Dane. I had a difficult time locating one anywhere near me. And the ones that I did find were not willing to lower prices or work with me at all. No taking payments until paid off then I take the dog or nothing. Until Veronica Dean! Veronica heard what I had to say and listened to my needs and my situation and when I was done she was quiet. Then she told me that she to had lost a loved one to su***de and she also had suffered depression herself. She told me that all she had left were males but that I was to pick one out, that she was giving him to me for free. I started bawling like a baby. I told her that I could pay $600 and she said no, to keep that and put it towards his training. She insisted that she give him to me free of charge. This page is being created not only for you all to follow Mack's progress as we attend classes and learn together before I really NEED him. But it's also for Veronica to see what a huge difference her huge heart is making in someone's life, mine.
