The Dog Story

Matt Cavalo in his book, "The Dog Story" does a wonderful job of helping the reader understand the difficulties that Multiple Sclerosis can bring into the life of an individual as well as their family.  Matthew wakes up one morning to feel the lower half of his body numb, like needles pricking him.  From the waist down, he has little to no control over what he wants to do.  Getting out of bed, even trying to take a step seemed almost impossible.  His wife Jocelyn was very concerned about him, but he brushed it off as something temporary and nothing to worry about. As days pass, he is admitted into the hospital and various tests are run to determine that he indeed will be diagnosed with MS. 

Matthew is given four options to consider for treatment.  He is certainly hoping that something will work and he will be able to function like he did earlier in his life. On his birthday his darling wife gave him a puppy, something that he longed for. While the puppy was still too young to be weaned from his mother, they had to wait a bit before getting him. When they went to pick the puppy up there was one little boy pup that kept playing at Matthew's feet. He then realized that this little pup would love him regardless if he had MS or not. This pup would love him unconditionally. This was Matthew's pick and takes this little one home and promises his wife that he would walk Teddy twice a day no matter how bad he felt. Teddy was such an encouragement and help for Matthew that he went on to get a degree, have two children and realized that MS stood for My Strength and it wasn't going to control him, rather he would control it. 

This is a very enjoyable and heartwarming book that will enable the reader to look inside themselves to see if we are allowing anything to keep us from becoming the best person we can be. Matthew didn't allow a circumstance within his life to sidetrack him and neither should we.

For anyone who has MS or knows someone who does, this would be a very good read to better understand in a non medical way how someone can cope not only with the onset of the disease, but how to handle it and move forward.