Angel on a Leash (27 page)

Most important to what Angel does, being the size that she is, is that she fits right into the beds at Memorial Sloan-Kettering with patients who need her, with women who have been through or are facing major, life-changing surgeries. Often, when we walk into a room, the patient starts to make room in her bed for Angel.

We never know what we are going to find when we walk into a room at Sloan-Kettering. The census that we get at the start of the visit only says “yes” or “no” next to each patient's name, indicating how the patients responded to the canvasser earlier in the day about a visit from a therapy dog later. The patient might be there for a checkup, for treatment, for surgery, or for something else. She may have had her surgery already or may be getting ready for surgery the next day.

Some of the patients are in good spirits, some are hurting, and some are scared. They may have been here before, they may have just gotten here, or they may have been here for a week. It's not my job to ask them about any of that. We are there to visit in the moment, to give them something to think about and talk about other than the challenges that they may be facing, to give them something to smile about.

It's obvious when the outlook is grim or, worse, when someone is getting ready to die. Often, the room is filled with people, and the patient is weak. Often, the patient still wants to see Angel, or her family members may want to get Angel in there to give them all one final smiling moment.

One night, we walked into a room, and there must have been twelve people in there, breaking rules that were meant to be broken at a time like this. Parents, husband, children, sisters, brothers, friends. They all reacted to Angel. I recognized the patient as someone we had seen the previous week, and I knew her name from the census anyway, so I greeted her by name.

“Hi, Reina. You really have a full house tonight. Is this a good time for a visit from us?” That question was really directed at the family, who probably knew best what was right for the moment.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes,” said several of the others in the room, and they made a path for us to get to Reina's side. I could hear lots of sniffles and soft crying. My guess was that they had all been called to Reina's bedside.

“Is this Angel?” one of them asked.

“Yes. Did Reina tell you about Angel?” I asked.

“She told us all about her. She loves Angel, and we are so glad you are here,” came an answer.

“Well, we are glad, too. Let's see if we can fit her in here.”

I laid down our towel on the bed. I could see a few tubes, and I knew that Reina was so fragile that it didn't make any difference if she had any sutures—I was going to have to be very careful to keep Angel off of her.

I set Angel down at Reina's side. I could hear and see cell-phone cameras shooting away, and I could hear a little more crying, almost happy crying, as they saw Reina reacting to Angel.

Reina smiled, and I took her hand, placing it on Angel's neck. “How's that?” I asked. She smiled to indicate that it was just fine. She tried to sit up a little more, but it hurt her. “Just stay right there; we will get her to you,” I said. Her husband helped her move a little bit. I got Angel to lie down along Reina's side, and she sat quietly, looking right at Reina.

This was another of those times where nothing needed to be said; I could just let Angel carry the moment. I was giving all of my attention and energy to keeping Angel right where she was and keeping Reina's hand on her. Reina was smiling and speaking softly to Angel in Spanish. I was thinking that, tonight, Angel was understanding everything Reina was saying, even in Spanish. Her tail was wagging softly, and that got an audible reaction and a few more tears from the room.

Reina didn't have much strength at this point, and after several minutes I kind of felt that Angel and I should move along and give the family their time with her. I knew she wasn't going to last much longer.

I said a little prayer for Reina to myself, squeezed her hand gently, and then gathered Angel up. Reina smiled and said thank you and then tried to lean forward to Angel. I moved Angel closer. Reina softly put her hand on Angel's head, and I lifted Angel up to eye level. Reina drew Angel to her and kissed her. Angel licked her face.

Everyone was crying, and I was fighting back tears myself. “Godspeed, sweetie. God loves you, and so does Angel.”

It's the nature of the job, of course, and the places we visit that we find ourselves dealing with death too often. We usually are not there, intentionally or unintentionally, to witness someone's actual passing. For one thing, Sloan-Kettering moves the patients through the tenth floor quickly. Most of the people we visit there on our regular Monday night visits are gone—we hope home—by the time of our next visit on the following Monday. We can see death coming, though, and occasionally our patients tell us that they are being moved to hospice the next day because nothing more can be done for them at the hospital, but that's as close as we come.

It's a different story at Ronald McDonald House, mostly because many of the families are there for weeks or months or even years. As the director of family support, Cheri goes to work there every day and grows close to the children and their families over time. While I don't go every day, I usually get there more than once a week for visits and events, and I see the same kids often. The “I only come once a week; I hope to never see you here again” line from MSK doesn't work here. You can't help but build relationships, and too often those relationships end up being painful.

Cheri is often the one to preside over a death and/ or a memorial service and all that goes with it. We find ourselves battling right alongside the children and their families, praying, hoping, and praying some more. But it's a different story here because these are kids. It's difficult to understand how this miserable disease in its many forms targets children. No, it is not fair.

Cheri and I don't have children of our own. Yes, our dogs are our children, and we fight every battle that they fight when it comes to their health. We don't usually share those struggles with the families at the House because of what they are going through themselves, but that doesn't change anything for us and our dogs.

Belle passed just after Angel turned two years old. We were devastated. Angel helped us get through it. We knew that she would be carrying on for Belle—not replacing Belle, but carrying on. That helped a little.

It was hard to tell the kids at the House, and we didn't tell many of them. They had their own battles, and we didn't want to burden them with one more. We told some of the parents, giving them the option of how, if at all, they would tell the kids. We still could bring Angel and Teigh to visit; it just wouldn't be Belle's turn on this night.

When you are visible in the neighborhood, as all of us with dogs can be, certain things happen when you go through the loss of one of your family members. We all know that it could happen to us next, and we want to say and do the right thing to be supportive. We say it and do it while looking at our own dogs, thinking about the day that it will be them and about how much our own dogs mean to us. So we actually get a double dose of sadness: one for our friend and his or her dog, and one for ourselves and our own dogs.

The news about Belle spread quickly around the neighborhood. It happened with Belle just like it happens with all of them. Our friends, accustomed to seeing us with three dogs, would now see us out with two, and couldn't help but ask, “Where's Belle?” Sometimes they didn't ask, but instead would look at us like they knew, they had heard, or they had seen us carrying her out of our building wrapped in a blanket. The first go-round can often be a wordless hug.

I found myself telling Belle's story a lot, and I was happy to do it, difficult as it may have been. Well, why not? She was a great dog, a great member of our family, and beloved in the neighborhood. She went too early, but she had a full life, and I didn't mind sharing that with people. God rest her orange-and-white soul.

After Belle's passing, we talked about getting another Brittany. With Angel, we had the perfect therapy dog for the hospital: a Cavalier that was cute—beyond cute—and of a smaller size that enabled her to do some things that a 35-pound Brittany might not be able to do as easily, such as fit into bed with a patient. Another plus was the ability to get Angel to the hospital when the weather was bad; she never had to put a foot on the ground between our apartment and the hospital if need be. We could get her there and not have to clean her feet or wipe her down when we got there. We couldn't haul Teigh that far.

Anyway, by now Teigh wasn't well and really wasn't doing any serious visiting. Most of his adventures came when we loaded him into his red wagon and took him to Finnegan's Wake for dinner and social time.

We decided that we would look for a young Brittany, not a puppy, hopeful that we could avoid playing the high-rise house-training games and get her into therapy dog class right away. We put the word out that we were looking for a young female that would be a show prospect, but our first priority was therapy dog mentality. We looked at a few when I judged at the Brittany national specialty in Colorado that summer, but we didn't find the right match.

Then we got an email from some friends who had just bred a litter. They admitted that they knew we were looking for an older dog, but they pointed out that this litter's grandsire was Belle's litter brother Jake, and they thought that we might be interested.

So much for plans. When we heard that, it was the end of our search. What better tribute to Belle than to carry on with her legacy?

We went to New Hampshire to see the litter at four weeks of age. We were immediately drawn to the largest puppy, who was quite dominant. We tentatively picked her, then went back three weeks later to confirm, then brought her home when she was eight weeks old.

We named her Grace (officially, Triumphant's Healing Grace), and she fit in right away—literally, as she could run underneath Angel. She grew up very nicely over the next few months, very respectful of Teigh and his condition but romping with Angel. It was very touching to see her lying on the couch next to Teigh and Angel, who was also quite protective of Teigh and sensitive to him.

Grace, however, soon had her own battle to fight. Because of a mix-up with her vaccines, she had been left unprotected and got parvovirus just as we were in the thick of battling every day for Teigh. Grace was in isolation and intensive care at AMC on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and, of course, we were right there with her as much as we were allowed. We couldn't believe it, but we had caught it in time and got her through it. When she came home, she had to spend two weeks in isolation in our apartment, never going outside during that time.

Grace was growing up to be very sweet, not quite as crazed as Teigh and Belle were as puppies. We blame that on her bout with parvo and also on the fact that she was being raised in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan with a Toy dog. She was still showing her bird dog heritage, pointing every pigeon she came across, and she ran with abandon up and down our hallway, but she wasn't quite as intense about life as Teigh and Belle had been. Actually, I think that was a good thing.

It wasn't long after Grace's bout with parvo that Teigh was facing his final days. Angel and Grace were both especially protective of him on his last day; they seemed to know what was coming. When he finally did pass at home on a Saturday night, they mourned quietly and stayed right by his side.

Angel and Grace both came out to the farm on that Sunday morning to watch us bury Teigh next to Belle. The two of them were in the spirit of the occasion, and they spent some time lying on the graves.

We didn't feel like we were starting over, but life was going to be so much different without Teigh and Belle. We weren't asking Angel and Grace to replace them, but we did talk to them about carrying on for Teigh and Belle. They have not disappointed us or anyone else.