> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # She Got There First - URL: https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/she-got-there-first/ - Published: 2026-02-19T15:43:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-25T03:05:49.000Z - Description: On rescue, parallel collapse, and what she knew before I did. - Author: S. Rolling - Tags: Root Work **Content note: loss, grief, chronic illness, caregiving.* --- She came from a Siberian Husky rescue a few hours away. She was about two years old and whatever happened before, was written all over her. You didn't need details, it was clear she had it rough. Kept a distance well away from most men. Warmed to women immediately. And I was the man she had to live with. --- ### **Ghost Threats** She'd often spring up swiftly as if under attack, for no visible reason. She ran into her crate to hide, often trembling. Nothing in the room, no sound, no trigger. The body just running a program from somewhere else, responding to threats that weren't there anymore. Still completely real to her nervous system. I knew exactly what that was, I've run that program myself... **Run, hide, be quiet and invisible. Brace for impact.** Two beings in the same house, both startling at ghosts. Both shaped by people who should have protected them. --- ### **Three Years** Earning her trust wasn't so much frustrating, more heartbreaking. She had every reason to be exactly as she was. Super hand-shy, skittish and fearful. The things humans do to each other and to animals. You sit with what that means, you have to prove you're the exception. It was almost three years before she trusted me, before we actually bonded. When it arrived it was complete, like she'd made a decision and that was that. ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/a9be4c2a4041cadbf9d61ae16dd1389e/2026/06/2004_07.jpg) From then on she just had to sleep on the bed with me. **I understood the weight of that.** --- ### **She Got Sick First** Before the caregiving, before any of it. I took her to half a dozen vets, and all of them wanted a biopsy (take a toe, maybe two). I told all of them... > *"Fuck-the-fuck-off. Can I take a toe from you? Maybe two?"* I did the research and had good idea of what I was looking at. Luckily, I found a vet who could see it too. It was DLE (Discoid lupus erythematosus), it was so painful on her paws she stopped trying to get up when in flare. After conservative and careful intervention, it largely went into remission, occasional flares, but manageable. She responded within a month, spry and energetic again. Without taking any toes from an elite runner. We figured it out because I refused to let the system tell me what I already knew wasn't right. Strange how that works because my body eventually did the same thing. And it took over three years of gaslighting before anyone acknowledged lupus. I fought for her in months and had to fight for myself in years. ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/a9be4c2a4041cadbf9d61ae16dd1389e/2026/06/2004_17.jpg) --- ### **Unconditional** People from certain kinds of childhoods learn early that affection and safety have terms. That love and protection is entirely dependent on your performance, usefulness, and not being or needing too much. **Then you get a dog.** The dog doesn't care what you produced or performed today. Just shows up the same way whether you're at your best or completely undone. Just waits by the door and is glad you're back. For someone that learned early that belonging, connection and safety were contingent, metered and at any moment revokable... She brought something entirely unfamiliar. > *The first model of anything unconditional you've ever had.* ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/a9be4c2a4041cadbf9d61ae16dd1389e/2026/06/2003_13.jpg) She took three years to trust me. I spent decades trying to unlearn conditions, while she simply decided I was safe. She got there first. --- ### **The Six Years** Full-time caregiving doesn't broadcast itself as the thing that's going to cost you everything. It just takes the next thing and then the next thing. Then one day, you stop to look up, and you see what's gone. House, business, relationships and much of what meant something. It was for one of the people who broke me at four and just never stopped. Looking back, the compulsion was never what I told myself. It wasn't devotion or duty, but something more complicated. Siberian Huskies are built to run, they need real exercise and need to be with their people. Back then I was up before first light to feed her, short walk and I was out. Return late to feed her, quick walk and gone again. Six years of that and she just waited, like that was enough. I knew it wasn't enough and I couldn't do anything about it. She spent her days alone while I was somewhere else losing my life while trying to hold someone else's together. --- ### **What I Had to Do** Around the time everything else collapsed, she was seventeen years old and things turned sideways. Our time together ran out while still desperately needing each other. > *She came broken and frightened, spent three years deciding I was worth trusting. Gave me everything she had after that.* Being the one to decide and when to make the call. While simultaneously losing nearly everything else. There's kind of alone and isolation that's impossible not to feel in that moment. **She deserved so much more than a goodbye in the middle of collapse.** --- ### **The Year After** A year after she was gone, my body produced lupus. Different version, same disease, different species, same origin story. Years of load and collapse as the body files what the mind couldn't afford to process. This time I was the patient. Three years of the system telling me what I already knew. The same dismissal I'd refused to accept for her. She got it first, went into remission with basic research and a vet willing to listen. I got it later and had to fight three years, just to get treatment. She saw it coming before I did, she always did. --- ### **Stolen** No vote on the long days, quick walks and empty house. She didn't get a choice in any of it. Faithful to the last day to someone who was doing the best he could and knowing it wasn't enough. The caregiving piece speaks to what those six years cost me. What it doesn't say is the cost that landed on her too. My life was stolen in those six years. *So was hers.* The truth is, I chose that for both of us. It's been eleven years and I can't bring myself to get another dog. That's not about dogs. --- ***→*** [***Share***](#/share) this if it stayed with you, brought something into focus, or helped you feel less alone. Someone else may need it too. More on the way ***→*** [***Subscribe free***](https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/act-zero-prologue/#/portal) for new posts delivered by email. --- ← Back to [**Root Work**](https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/tag/root-work/) --- *\* peer reflections:* [*not medical or therapy advice.*](https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/author-note/) *\** ---