April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
Service dog turns heads at church
When they learned that the greyhound serves a woman with disabilities, it stirred more questions: "Why does the dog wear an orange vest?" "Why can't people know the dog's name?" "Does she like being a service dog?"
Adults questioned owner LouAnn Nahm on her need for the dog, since she isn't blind and doesn't use a wheelchair.
"With LouAnn in particular, [the disability is] not immediately obvious," remarked Donna Bradbury, a catechist at the parish.
Rev. Thomas Krupa, pastor, suggested Mrs. Nahm address the children's curiosity, so she spoke to Mrs. Bradbury's small class of six girls.
"She is a wealth of information," Mrs. Bradbury said. "You could tell that she loved to talk about this. I think [the students] got a lot of very specific knowledge about service dogs, but I also think they got to understand a little bit about disabilities."
Mrs. Bradbury wrote an article in the parish bulletin after the visit, describing the variety of reasons people get service animals and Mrs. Nahm's experience with her dog.
Painful accident
In 2007, an air conditioning panel blew out of the wall in Mrs. Nahm's Massachusetts apartment, hitting her in the head and causing brain damage similar to that sustained by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last year.
"It was like having a massive stroke," Mrs. Nahm said. Dust inhalation from the accident also caused her to lose part of her lung and later develop lung cancer.
She suffers from balance, coordination and cognitive issues. Walkers and canes didn't help much, and she struggled with stairs, elevators and standing up.
At her doctor's suggestion, Mrs. Nahm got the dog a year ago and trained it within four months. She can now walk the length of a mall, often relying on the dog for balance.
The accident also left Mrs. Nahm with long- and short-term memory loss. In the hospital, she had to relearn who her husband, children and father were - and had to be reminded that her mother was deceased.
"I thought my son was a doctor," she said. "I had to relearn everything, from simple addition" to colors and the alphabet.
Struggle to recall
The dog calms her down when the forgetfulness makes her emotional: for instance, when she heard a fire alarm for the first time.
Mrs. Nahm remembers certain things at certain times, but can easily forget, too. She described it as "having two pieces of [rolled-up] Swiss cheese rotating in opposite directions, so you never really see the same hole twice.
"When I do remember something, there's no emotions attached. It's like it happened to someone else," she added.
Mrs. Nahm had to be told that she had a real estate license before the accident and that she attended college: "From what my sister tells me, I got a 1250 on the SATs."
She had also kept greyhounds as pets and trained horses and dogs with behavioral problems. Animal psychology is one memory that didn't leave her, so she knew how to train her service dog.
Because the greyhound is a service dog, Mrs. Nahm must have pet insurance for her and take her to the veterinarian at the first sign of illness. The vest means the dog is working - which is also why Mrs. Nahm doesn't share the greyhound's name, to keep her from being distracted when well-meaning people call out to her.
But "once that vest comes off," Mrs. Nahm noted, "she's just a normal dog. She'll run around and play and have a blast."
Always together
The dog accompanies her everywhere, from restaurants to public bathrooms. Mrs. Nahm receives static from some business owners, but her disabilities and the dog's certification papers usually assuage them.
"A lot of people think she doesn't like it, that she's being forced" to be a service dog, Mrs. Nahm added - but when the owner picks up the vest, the dog jumps up and runs in circles, like other dogs do when presented with a ball.
Educating her parish family, Mrs. Nahm said, helped "people to understand that I wasn't trying to disrupt things or be the center of attention. We're here to do the same thing they are: to praise and worship God."[[In-content Ad]]
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