A guest post I wrote for The Bark blog earlier this month explained why it was that I’d been toying with sending Harper back to Morristown while I stay in Chicago and recover from my broken foot. That guest post (called “What’s a Seeing Eye dog do when his human breaks her foot?”) ended like this:

While getting regular workouts with Seeing Eye trainers in Morristown would be great for Harper’s work ethic, we worry what a temporary move back to Seeing Eye School might do to Harper’s mental health. Not to mention … mine.

A few days after that post was published, Mike took Harper to a regularly-scheduled vet visit. I stayed home, slumped in front of my laptop with my cast up on the back of the couch. Harper checked out fine except for one thing. He’ gained five pounds.

So it wasn’t just about our mental health anymore. Now my broken foot was affecting Harper’s physical health, too. I cut his food down from two cups to one-and-a-half cups a day and gave the Seeing Eye another call.

The doc left the x-ray up on the computer and Mike snapped it. It's getting there!

John Keane, Manager of Instruction & Training, said that, yes, I could send Harper back to the school for a while.” Our trainers could walk your dog every day, and of course Harper would perform for them,” he said. “But really, what would that get you, Beth?” Not much, I admitted. Just like cars that squeak or malfunction at home but perform perfectly at the mechanic’s, guide dogs are notorious for behaving well with instructors. It’s working at home that really matters.

“We usually only have dogs come back for help if they’re having problems in traffic, problems that are so serious they can’t be solved at home,” John said. In that case, trainers might try to re-enact the traffic problem while the dog is there in Morristown, see if they can remedy it, then bring the dog back and work with the team in the graduate’s home environment. I’d been doing my best to get out with Harper a couple times a week, even with the boot cast. “I really don’t notice any problems with traffic,” I told John, and he was happy to hear that.

“We’ll send someone out to give you another refresher course once your foot is healed,” John assured me. “Just be sure to let us know the minute you get any hint about when you might be out of the cast.”  John is the guy in charge of scheduling home visits, and he wants to get mine on the calendar.

I may be making that magical phone call to the Seeing Eye very soon: last Wednesday the foot doctor gave me a prescription for orthopedic shoes! I never dreamed I’d ever, ever be so excited about the prospect of wearing orthopedic shoes, but trust me, I am doing the one-legged dance of joy. My foot is on the mend, the doc said, and once my shoes come in and get fitted with a wide shank for added stability, the  boot comes off for good. And then, watch out, world: Harper and I will be on the road again.

Flo has been checking up on me every day since I got my cast on. She was elated to hear how protective my new shoes will be, and relieved to hear my foot is healing. “I’ll have to start out slow with the new shoes, you know, only one block the first day, then two the next,” I told her, explaining those are the only shoes I am allowed to wear the next couple months. “Guess I won’t be wearing any of my summer dresses for a while.”

“Oh, you can still wear your dresses,” Flo assured me. “They wear anything these days.” It’s a Floism she’s been using since I was a teenager. And you know, she’s still right.

One break was so severe that it will heal crookedly. So much for a future career as a foot model. Even after a few months, when I can get out of the orthopedic shoes, I’ll have to stick to practical ones. Hardly a concern, though. thanks to Flo’s daily phone calls, Mike’s help at home and his work with Harper, my sister Marilee and our friend Matt Cunningham subbing with Harper when Mike was out of town, and you countless others who have helped keep my spirits up the past couple of months, you’ll be seeing me back on the streetd soon. I’ll be easy to spot: just look for the happiest clodhopper in Chicago.

eMy guest blogger returns! Here’s a book review from my husband.

What we can learn from people like Gus

by Mike Knezovich

This is a great book, but I'm not linking to Amazon. Go get it or order it at your local bookstore.

As many of you are lucky to know, Beth has a knack for giving poignant, thoughtful gifts. She was true to form this past Father’s Day when she gave me a book called The Boy in the Moon. I just finished it. And what a read.

Beth doesn’t mention our son Gus very often in these blog posts of hers. Like other parents, we love our son. Think about him. Worry about him. But loving a child who has severe disabilities can be difficult to explain, so we tend not to try.

As for me, I admit I wonder what people think of what it’s like raising a son like Gus. I can get angry if I detect pity — or condescension — toward Gus, toward me and Beth, or the unspoken wonder that we could love a kid like Gus. And I can get hurt if people don’t ask or don’t know how to ask about our son. And then, when they do, sometimes they don’t really want to hear the answer.

Over time, I have come to understand that Gus, and life with him, simply had to be a mystery to others. After all, our son’s life has been—at least in real time—something of a mystery to me. Gus lived with us at home for 16 years, and all that time I had no way of telling others what it was like. And I have no way of telling people what it is like having him live away from us, either.

Now I don’t have to. Ian Brown, a writer for the Toronto Globe & Mail, has done it for me, and he’s done it better than I could hope to in his book The Boy in the Moon. So here’s a request: Go out and buy The Boy in the Moon. And read it as soon as you can fit it into your schedule.

That's Gus and Beth at a lunch date near his home in Wisconsin.

I’m not asking you to do this just for me and Beth and Gus. I do admit to selfish motives, though. If you read this book—which is the author’s account of raising and trying to understand his son Walker, who has a rare genetic disorder that leaves him with multiple disabilities—you will know what it has been like raising Gus. Ian Brown’s accounts are superbly written and uncannily similar to my memories—from receiving the genetic diagnosis to the 16 years of sleep deprivation to what it was like to parade around hyper-normal places like Disney World when things are not normal.

But more than that, you will understand why it all was worth it. As the author writes about his son Walker, “Everything about him compels me, unless it terrifies me, and sometimes it does both.”

The first half or so of the book covers Brown’s experience as a parent and a husband, but the rest is a look at what disabled people like Gus and Walker have to offer the rest of us. What they can teach us. You might be skeptical that they can. Or anticipate saccharine platitudes. I understand. But it’s richer and more complicated than that.

Beth and I and other families and caretakers know that people like Walker and Gus teach us extraordinary things. This book explains how and why better than I can—I hope you’ll read it.