Page 1016 - Total War on PTSD

Bobbi Ann barks at me if I space out (dissociate); nudges me to say ”breathe, I’m right here”, watches my back and lets me know when someone is coming up on me; wakes me from nightmares and, if I don’t wake up, she jumps on my wife to wake her so she in turn can wake me; provides mobility assistance through counter balance and light bracing; and when I experience cardiac issues she paws my chest and holds me to a wall, and will keep rubbing and licking me until I sit down.
Bobbi Ann is the reason we discovered I had a cardiac condition to begin with, she was acting out-of-sorts and wouldn’t leave me; wouldn’t stop alerting on me; I was sitting on the couch one day with my family watching The Notebook, and that’s when all of the sudden my heart felt like it was going to beat through my chest and come out on the floor. My pulse was taken and it was 202. Immediately I went to a local ER and two hospital admissions later I was placed on a medication (beta blocker) to try and help slow my heart rate down. On March 5th my UPMC cardiologist performed a cardiac ablation to try and help slow my heart rate due to this rare arrhythmia. The ablation was only temporarily successful, I have tried two other rounds of medications to no avail. So September 2018, I underwent another cardiac ablation (complete heart block) and dual chamber pacemaker implantation. Bobbi Ann literally saved my life; she knew before we did that something just wasn’t right!
If my arrhythmia was left untreated it would have worn my heart out way before its time or could have caused a sudden cardiac arrest.
It’s extremely frustrating when people want to pet your working dog and ignore you as the handler. It's not their fault because they aren’t educated but then again it is because some people, as much as you educate them, it doesn’t change their thoughts or how they get offended because you stated, “She’s working, please don’t pet her” while they are reaching to pet her! I look at like if you're in the middle of a meeting that your job depends on and the whole time, you're presenting your big concept to your boss someone’s standing there in front of you jumping up and down saying, “Hey, hey, hey, hey look, look, look at me!” It would be a huge distraction and you would be offended, frustrated at their lack of respect, and overall emotionally
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