I’m sitting here listening to Watain’s ‘Casus Luciferi’ and life seems to be making sense this morning. Idle hands are not the devil’s tool, the idle mind is. I do things for my family and try to take care of my home and life makes sense. I go for walks with and train Maple and life makes sense. I visit friends and family and life makes sense. I approach anything to do with work and, well, it doesn’t.

Getting a dog to train for service and stating my intent has sure cleared the air with folks. I now know the obtusity is a must. Everyone wants it that way. It’s by design. The only one left to opine is the city of toronto itself, but that comes tomorrow. I should have called Maple “Epiphany” but that’s harder to yell.

I’m not going to keep investing myself in this. I wasted my time and wrote this whole stupid rambling thing to read to the WSIB lady this week based around the intensity that I’ve experinced my injury and the idea that others would understand and empathize if I took the time to explain, but I realize now there’s no point. That time could have been better spent on my family and I see that now. I guess we’ll all just find out what I’m capable of soon enough. Nothing changes but me. As Bad Religion said: “the world won’t stop without you”, and the service won’t stop without me.

Options, their minimum requirements and the consequences of failure. That’s all that needs discussed at this juncture. I have been a city of toronto paramedic for 21 years, including injured time, and I’ve had Maple for 2 months. Guess which one makes sense.

*UPDATE*: As I was writing this my OT reached out to let me know there would be no informal discussion with the city about the process without everyone involved present. Fantastic. Nothing helps an anxiety disorder like keeping everything I’m facing unknown. Insisting I’m full of shit when I do speak is a good runner-up though.