My best four legged friend.
I had been wanting a dog sooooooo bad. When I first moved in with Paul a little over two and a half years ago, he was renting our house and no dogs were allowed. Paul told me how he wasn’t really a dog person, so I let my dream go for a while.
When we built our house, I was determined to adopt, but of course. As anyone reading this blog already knows, I got sick. Actually, the day I went into the hospital was the day they broke ground on our house. Paul moved in on July 31st but I was still finishing up my 100 days until August 31st.
Since I had a poor immune system and needed to be on neutropenic restrictions for the duration of my 100 days, a dog was out of the question. The doctors told me I would need to wait a year from transplant to get a pup.
I was on steroids for my graft vs host disease (GVHD) but they had been tapering me down and I was at a very low dose. In March I decided to ask my doctor when it would be okay for me to get a dog and he said I could! I was ecstatic. Paul wanted a puppy so we could train him/her and give them their own original name. Of course, the day I came home I was searching petfinder to find my puppy. We decided we wanted to get some kind of lab.
A few days later my friend Amber and I decided to go to the Joplin Humane Society. Paul said only looking! No buying!
I found a puppy named Happy (I think at least) online that I wanted to check out. She was a lab mix with fairly long hair. Super cute, but she found a happy home with another family the day we were there. They didn’t seem to have many puppies, so my inpatient self was going to need to wait.
I noticed a cage of little black dogs but there wasn’t anything written on their cage. I asked the lady about them and she told me they were pit bull mixed that were about 11 weeks old. Because I’ve been sick I tried to pick the least energetic one. Her name was Renee. She was so cute and playful. I texted Paul a few pictures and begged him to let me bring her home. One of the staff told me she was recused from a hoarder situation and they tried to hide her and her brothers and sisters in the attic to keep them from being taken away.
I told Paul the hoarding story and he said and I quote, “that’s awful. Take that puppy home.”
Look at that face. How could you not want to take her home?!
She wasn’t big on photos back then. But I finally got my puppy! We decided Renee wasn’t a good fit for her and rename her Yuna, or as I like to call her Yuna Bug.
She’s been my number one companion ever since that day. She naps with me, comforts me when I feel sick, follows me around the house, she even tries to showers and baths with me. Though sometimes she drives me a little crazy. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Today she actually slept in her crate for an hour or so this morning and it was so out of the normal that she wasn’t sitting next to me I thought something was wrong with her. She brings joys to my sad days and is ever so patient with me on my bad days. She keeps me company when Paul’s at work and keeps me active when I think I’d rather just lay in bed all day. She just brings me such joy.
Her puppy stage was difficult. I had a hard time keeping up with her but my girl is a fast learner. House training her only took two or three weeks. She minimally had issues with her crate (but mostly Paul let’s her sleep on the bed with us, one of his rules he’d swear he’d never do).
Wanna know a secret? ……….
Paul is totally a lover. He loves her just as much as me. Every day when she greets him all excited and happy after his hard day at work, I know she brightens his day.
Now my little Yuna is 7 months old. When we first adopted her she was 11 pounds, now she’s a whopping 41 pounds.
Shes made lots of friends along the way.
Though there’s been times we’ve had to spend a part for months at a time, Yuna doesn’t mind, she still loves me all the same. We all have flaws, even Yuna has an obsession with my yarn, jumping into mud puddles, ripping the stuffing out of all her toys, chewing a huge bone in the middle of the night, hogging the bed, bejng crazy when she gets a glimpse of someone who might possibly pet her (seruously, it’s like her drug), shredding up paper, getting stuck on everything imaginable when she’s outside on her chain but I still love her.
She has a special place in my heart.
My Life after Leukemia 