Day 105. Exemplary Healers, Exemplary Healing: Part 2.

Family Update: Mom's progress is slow. She is beginning to tapering off some heavy medication, and now she must face a heavy dose of reality. The doctors have cautioned of an emotional let down as she tappers so a challenging time is ahead. With the decrease does of medication she is seeming a little more fragile, and her favourite saying is now "I feel like I had back surgery". Now to unwind after a good week of friends, family and Whinnie (and another therapy dog) visiting. 

Examplary Healers, Exemplary Healing: Part 2. 
By: Mary Merchant

In the 25 years that I’ve been active in Pet Therapy, I’ve tested more than a hundred dogs, mentored countless new teams - and personally partnered with twelve different Therapy Dogs of my own. All have brought special gifts to their work. Each has demonstrated how healing is both a life-time’s task, and a moment’s grace. Maureen has asked me to share a few of their stories in this guest blog.

Dazzle was a truly outstanding Therapy Dog - a beautiful purebred Collie who worked for many years throughout the North Bay hospital - and taught me that healing can still occur, even when hope is gone. On one exceptional occasion, she demonstrated the power of staying completely in the moment, and making the most of it, to the very end. We had been called in suddenly, at the nursing staff’s request, to see a new patient in the Intensive Care Unit. 

The car accident that broke his neck left him paralyzed, with only days to live. The middle-aged man was unable to move from the neck down, could barely whisper, and was deeply withdrawn. And, as I learned when we arrived, he didn’t want a Therapy Dog visit, or anything at all, save all those countless things he could never have again. With the ICU staff gathered around, I guided Dazzle onto a chair placed against his bed where the patient could at least see her. I wondered what on earth we could possibly do - and I’m sure everyone else there, the man’s wife included, was wondering much the same. 

Dazzle settled into the chair and for a long moment just looked at this unresponsive man beside her. Then she slowly leaned forward and touched her nose to his cheek. A moment later, she turned away and looked closely at the bedside ventilator helping him breathe.  She touched that, too, with her nose.  A moment more passed, then Dazzle shifted forward, nudging the patient again and, looking at him very intently. He in turn, had begun watching her every move. Just then, the patient began to chuckle - a harsh, crackling sound, but clearly a chuckle nonetheless, continuing for several laboured breaths. In response, Dazzle began to hover a front paw over the bed’s surface. With staff encouragement, I gave her the ‘go up’ cue - all the while praying that dear Dazzle, who adored bounding enthusiastically onto our bed at home, wouldn’t disconnect any tubes as she climbed aboard. I needn’t have worried. She crept carefully to the end of the bed, turned around to face the patient, and propped her head on his lifeless feet, while she gazed steadily into his eyes. He, in turn, looked right back at her for many silent moments...With her patient past any hope of what’s commonly called ‘healing’, Dazzle had quietly accomplished the extraordinary. In the face of impending death, she summoned up that life-affirming chuckle. And a dying man’s wife heard the sound of her husband’s laughter one more precious time. A gift of healing for them both, even when ‘hope was gone’.

Often, Therapy Dogs heal by retrieving moments from the past. Dazzle’s golden giant of a son Colonel, brought this realization vividly home to me one day. We were visiting a favourite hospital patient, a widower who for years had shared with his wife a great love for their own Collie. “They look so much alike - your Colonel and our Sandy”, he would  say. On this occasion, a nurse needed to wheel some equipment past Colonel’s bountiful tail spread out on the floor behind him. I repositioned him so she could pass, and as I did so, Colonel gently balanced on his hind legs, and (clearly Dazzle’s son!) touched his nose to my cheek, before sitting back down a little closer to the patient’s bed. We’d been having a happy conversation, so I was shocked to see tears running down the old man’s face. “Our Sandy used to do that exact same thing”, he explained. ”He’d stand up and touch his nose to my wife’s cheek just like that, and she’d stroke his head and call him ‘our good boy’ Just now, just for a moment, when Colonel did that with you - it was like having them both back here with me again, like they knew to come back when I really needed them to...”  Our patient gave me a china Collie figurine “to remember him by” when he left a few weeks later, saying none of his kids would want or appreciate it. I’ve had it for many years now, and treasure it still - for what it meant to him and what it taught me about the healing power of memory, and the lasting strength of love.

Deva, one of my current Therapy Dog partners, is Dazzle’s great-great-great grandniece, making her kin as well to Colonel. Very different in appearance - she is petite and blue merle (silver/black and white) while he was statuesque and pale gold, still they share the skill of retrieving memories and healing hearts. On our way to visit a patient on the Surgical unit not too long ago, Deva and I were stopped by a visitor emerging from a patient’s room. Clearly distraught already, the sight of Deva seemed to have startled her somehow. “Please, can you bring the dog in to see my mother? She’s dying - and that dog, well, it’s the spitting image of her old dog, Skittles.”  We went in right away and assisted Deva/Skittles onto the bed, where she inched her way up to lie snug against the elderly woman’s side. “See, Mom - it’s Skittles. She’s come back to be with you”, the daughter choked out. Mom smiled and whispered to the dog at her side, her frail hand stroking through familiar fur, just as she’d done many times before. 

We stayed till she fell asleep, saying very little - for really what was there to say?  We went back the next day, but she had died during the night. Just as, years ago, Colonel had retrieved Sandy and a grieving widower’s wife, Deva had ushered Skittles back into the life of a dying woman - just when each was needed most. 

Dazzle, Colonel, Deva - all exemplary healers, bringing the healing gifts of wholeness and closure in loving service to Life. I count myself richly blessed to have shared their journeys - and their stories.