A Canine Update

[Image Description: A close up of a brown doc with bright orange eyes. The dog’s face is in focus and the rest is blurred. Her long pink tongue is sticking out as she stares at the camera.] Image Source: Photo by James Barker on Unsplash

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Disability and Determination is a weekly newsletter about my experience living with a rare disability…with a little bit of meditation, pop culture, and other random things thrown in. If you like this post, give me a like with the ❤️ symbol below. This will help me get discovered by others on Substack. Drop your email in the field at the bottom and click the Subscribe button to be notified of future posts, or if you want to contribute, I offer a paid subscription option (that includes extra monthly content), or you can Buy Me a Coffee ☕

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I’m a little late today and when that happens, you know I wrote this live instead of scheduling it 😂

I was in the process of writing a letter to my health insurance company to give to the service dog company I’m applying to. Apparently I am not the only one who has been totally shut down when asking said health care company for the service dog medical history form to be filled out (yes, that actually happened).

I won’t go into all the gory details, but the gist of it is that my primary care doctor refused to fill out the Medical History form I needed because she thought I was applying for an emotional support animal and when I attempted to explain myself, I was totally shut down by her nurse and told to contact member services who sent me on another wild goose chase. I still don’t even know if I could have actually gotten the form filled out since it was for a service dog and not an emotional support dog because I couldn’t get an answer from anyone.

The actual service dog company ended up being the ones who saved the day. I reached out to them to tell them what was happening and they advised that I could get my medical records and send those in lieu of the Medical History form. They literally sent me step-by-step instructions on how to do that too. Something none of the 10 people I talked to at my healthcare company ever told me. It’s been beyond frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, I made it to the next stage so I have an in-depth phone interview to see if I would be a good candidate for a service dog and vice versa. I’ll report back how that went.

But in case you’re wondering…this is why disabled people are effing tired (something

Kelly Mack

writes about so very well). Four years of a pandemic wasn’t quite enough without all of the accessibility issues we face on the regular, and then often dealing with not being listened to by the very people who are supposed to be caring for our health.

On the topic of service dogs though, if you love dogs and actually want to see a really detailed look at how service dogs are selected and trained, I highly suggest Inside the Mind of a Dog on Netflix (narrated by the Rob Lowe). Even if the service dog doesn’t pan out, I am getting a dog regardless 😂

Happy week everyone 🫶