Holy shit, thank the fucking gods that it’s 2026. That’s it, that’s the whole post.
Okay, but not really. I owe everyone an apology. Halloween became the tipping point for me last year, and I dropped the ball pretty hard. I missed out finishing my own Spooky Campfire, and it was a downhill spiral from that Friday onward.
I got my kids set up for trick-or-treating, but by the end of the night, I was cold, tired, and had a migraine. When I got home, I noticed the first signs of my former service dog acting strange. She’s 12 now, retired in 2022.
The next morning, I was sick, surprise surprise. My mid-terms were due, and I got bogged down trying to finish them through one of my famous 103º fevers. I then had to grade the midterms for the class I was TAing. By mid-November, I was spent, and looking for a quick break, and put off posting about my absence in favor of recovering.
My middle child’s birthday is mid-November, and we spent it together in the hospital. The two of us had bronchitis, and I was heartbroken to spend the day in the hospital watching my son get breathing treatments instead of celebrating his birthday.
By the end of the week, I was sick again, and barely able to get through classes. I disappeared from substack, discord, and book clubs. I canceled the end of the year run club activities for my kids’ school because I didn’t have anyone willing to fill in for me, and I couldn’t do it myself.
To add insult to injury, at Thanksgiving, my dog went downhill fast. Her breathing was erratic, she was wheezing, and her heartbeat felt arrhythmic. I made an appointment the next day to bring her in when I got back from the holiday at my mother-in-law’s, only to learn that my dog is dying. She’s in the early stages of kidney failure, has a pronounced heart murmur, her ultrasound shows congestive heart failure, and her arthritis has gotten much worse, as well.
I barely made it through finals, and to my deep dismay our other dog washed from his service dog training. His temperament wasn’t right for it, and years of effort slipped away. He’s a sweet, derpy, energetic dog and we love him, but that left me at a loss. We made the tough choice to adopt a new dog bred for service work, and brought him home the same day my finals were over.
The next morning, the first Saturday of the kids’ Christmas break, two out of three kids were extremely ill, with fevers and coughs, spending the day sleeping in my bed while I cared for an 11-week-old German Shepherd puppy who we didn’t have a name for. Sunday, the third child fell ill, along with my husband, and by Monday, I did, too.
The kids got better, we did not. The flu clung on like white dog hair to black pants, and finally my husband got better. I did not. I spent the entire holiday sick, and for Christmas, I got pneumonia. And a trip to the hospital. I celebrated the new year at home, thankfully, but it was another 3 weeks before I finally stopped coughing. As in, I just stopped coughing yesterday. Gross.
In short, my “two week break” for the holiday was really just me and my whole family being sick and stuck at home so we didn’t make anyone else sick, while also trying to care for a literal baby. Poor puppy. My classes restarted the Monday after the new year, with our last class meeting today and our final due tomorrow. I love a good January semester, when I’m not dying. This one went by so fast, but I loved this class and this professor, and I wish I’d had the course for the duration of the spring semester instead.
As it is, the puppy is now a full 16 weeks, and he’s enormous. He finally has a name, too! It’s Shadow. He even has his own Instagram - @shadow.pbpaws_thegsd is the handle. He is growing and learning so quickly, sometimes it’s hard to keep up. And he’s a very handsome boy. I’ve included a couple photos from the weekend to pay the dog tax, because he is super photogenic, and also because his ears just stood up for the first time!
I’m still recovering, but hoping to get back in the saddle, if you will. Now that you’ve gotten my sordid story from the last three months, hopefully you’ll forgive me. Once I finish my final project for this class, I’ll make up a new schedule for posting that I can keep up with during the busy spring semester! And I can take a mulligan on my Spooky Campfire—hopefully I can have a redo for Valentine’s Day and people will still participate. In the meantime, I will still feature the stories I missed out on back in October.
If you kept up this long, thank you. I’m glad to be back, and glad to have you still as a reader. Looking forward to 2026 and putting it into the universe that this will be a great year!
xoxo
Grace
Wow, that's a really rough few months. Glad to have you back! Hope 2026 goes better.
That sounds like a really rough go. I’m glad you’re feeling better.