Jen and K-9 Clover

My name is Jen. I grew up in the desert southwest, surrounded by aunts and uncles who were nurses and deputies and a WWII army medic father so it’s no wonder I ended up in emergency medicine. After nursing school, a move to Minnesota turned permanent . I fell in love with the north woods and Lake Superior, and have been here ever since with my wonderful husband of 25 years, our two sons, and daughter-in-law.
I've been an RN for 35 years, spending the last 25 in the emergency department at Hennepin County Medical Center. After starting out in ICU around the cities, ER was a better fit for my brain.
My PTSD didn't start with one moment, but accumulated over decades: delivering death notifications to families, trying to save children the same age as my own, workplace injuries including dislocated vertebrae and broken shoulder. The pandemic brought inpatient room and ventilator shortages, riots outside the hospital, and people accusing us of being actors in an empty hospital as we walked to our cars after work.
The breaking point came when an angry family group stormed my department accusing us of hiding the body of their deceased family member. They saw two police officers and started chasing them through triage and threatening to kill them. I ran the officers down a hall and hid them while the family yelled and threw chairs, tried to break glass, and hunted for the officers in patient rooms. After police and security cleared the scene, I went on with my work day, thankful that shots weren't fired.
Over the following years I witnessed gunshots outside my department, a guarded patient attack an officer and attempt to take his gun, i suffered another debilitating back injury at work from a fall, I had several coworkers succumb to suicide, my brother died from COVID, and dementia took my mom's mind away after she went through major breast cancer surgery and a nearly fatal blood clot.
I became withdrawn, I cried every day, and panic attacks began waking me at night. I stopped going anywhere I didn't have to. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I couldn't even handle going to church or the store. I hated anyone asking “how are you?” because I was horrible. The only place I felt semi OK was in nature with no people around. I felt like my brain quit working, I was tired all the time, and I couldn't process things right.
PTSD is strange - some things won't affect you and then something tips the scales and everything does. And with stacked trauma it is hard to know what triggers are.
I'm now in therapy and EMDR which has helped me get functional again, and I am able to continue to work in the ER and teach review classes. I am nowhere near back to normal, but I am at least getting closer to my old self. I will also be starting new treatments called brain spotting for complex PTSD.
I am deeply grateful to Soldier's 6 for the opportunity to train my golden retriever as a service dog. I have been trying to get my life back by pushing myself, but it has been really difficult, as those moments of panic and anxiety hit me when I am away from home.
This feels like an answered prayer to be able to train Clover as a service dog.