PET’S' SCAN
Seven years ago, in late May, I found Sam waiting at the end of a dirt road about forty miles off the Nevada interstate. My then boyfriend had taken one of the many undefined side trips that happened on the way to visit his dad in Wyoming.
Sam was going to be shot, because her owner had left her behind, and the woman with whom she had bonded has been killed in an off-road vehicle accident. Jim, the stepfather and widower had two other Border Collies, and an aging father to care for. Jim’s work kept him away for days at a time. He couldn’t handle a year-old pup, and this wasn’t a place touched by rescue organizations. This was the boonies.
Five months before I had been diagnosed with cancer. All the plans had been in place for me to receive chemo and radiation. One day, while waiting in my oncologist’s office my cell phone rang. It was my doctor at UCSF. The recommendation was that I didn’t need chemo-radiation. I could be followed at the Dysplasia Clinic. The call was my reprieve, and that is why I could be on this trip where I met Sam.
She was confined to a small cage with food and water. I retrieved a dog biscuit from my car and offered it to her. She stared cautiously at me. I had already decided that if this didn’t seem right, I wasn’t going to consider taking her. It wasn’t my responsibility to save every creature. I take dog ownership seriously. This would be a ten to fifteen year commitment. I couldn’t just go rescuing every abandoned canine that came my way. Could I? But I was drawn to her intensity.
She was uninterested in my food offering. When I stuck my fingers through the cage and told her how beautiful she was, she moved in close enough so that I could rub her neck. Her intense brown eyes held my gaze. I made a decision.
Jim seemed relieved and agreed to put off the execution. On the way back to California we retraced the forty miles up the dirt road. She was waiting. After a bit of struggle to get her into a kennel, I returned home with her to Southern California, a place as different from her old world as my new cancer reality was for me.
Sam and I both had reprieves. We were alive. Not only was my cancer diagnosis not a death sentence, but my treatment plan required only a bit of inconvenience and discomfort every few months. We settled in.
A year later, Sam and I met a pet psychic. I hadn’t meant to have a session. I simply showed up at my favorite pet store. Linda, the owner displays some of my dog prints and cards, and I thought I could answer questions if anyone was interested in commissioning a pet portrait.
“She has an opening,” Linda said as I got out of the car. A world-known pet communicator had a moment for us. I couldn’t resist.
“She was waiting for her life to start,” the psychic told me. “She was only there for the woman. That’s who she bonded with. When she was gone…”
Sam had a few other things to say that day. She commented about the new four month-old Border Collie puppy I’d somehow acquired. She said Finn was okay but no more! That was fine with me. My intention had been to rescue an adult, but Sam is dominant and bossy, a bit like me, and the rescue lady thought she’d do much better with someone who would follow her every command. Who can resist a puppy?
I could have. A few weeks after I got Sam home I realized I would have resisted her if I hadn’t felt so absolutely comfortable about my prognosis.
“Anything that happens will be picked up in the precancerous stage,” I’d been told by my practitioner at UCSF.
I had driven back to pick up Sam, had rescued her, because I planned to see us into old age. Sam’s and now Finn’s presence in my life reminded me of my hopefulness.
Cancer is all about mortality. It’s a word that causes you to position yourself somewhere between birth and death, and to begin counting. I thought I knew my future, but cancer is tricky.
Three years later the bullet I had dodged found its target. My tumor recurred and this time the treatment was inescapable.
The day of my first chemo I drove myself to the treatment. Sam and Finn were with me. If the weather is cool they accompany me on my travels. My car is their den. Before I went into the oncologist’s office I explained only that I would be back, and gave them a job. “Be good, and watch the car.”
After my purple cocktail, I returned, feeling unchanged. As I usually do, I rolled down the back window to greet them and to accept greetings.
Finn had not yet mastered dog kisses. He watches Sam and seemed only to understand that they had something to do with making nose to face contact. He didn’t understand the tongue movement. Sam however usually greets me with generous licks. That day, just minutes after my chemo, her hello was cautious and kiss-less. Her tail wagged, she made eye contact, but avoided my face. Finn did the same. Something was different about me, and she picked it up immediately. I wasn’t sure what he understood, but for the next three months he followed her lead.
Border Collies need work. From April to July these active dogs endured my declining energy and health. Instead of hours of walking and herding, running on the beach and ball chasing, they focused on one job – waiting for me to recover. When my sisters, or my cousin or my boyfriend were here to help me, their activity level increased a bit, but the usual expectations had been put aside. “Mom is sick,” they seemed to say to each other. “Our job is watch and wait.” And so they did.
Five weeks after finishing my treatment I began to take short, slow walks with them, always close to home. They were patient. pacing themselves as I regained my confidence. I would take them to the park and throw balls for a short time, then, I returned to bed. I had days when I could make it around the block only three or four times. I still didn’t feel normal. I had begun to wonder how I would know when I was myself again, when I had moved into a recovery phase.
Three months after I finished treatment, I had a follow-up appointment, this time with my radiation-oncologist. He reassured me that I would gain back the twenty-five pounds I’d lost. He examined me, and said that I still had some healing to do, but that he didn’t feel the tumor.
The news was good, but guarded. It will be five to seven years before I have a clean bill of health, before I know for sure that my cancer is gone, years that will include follow-up exams and always those radioactively scary PET scans that light up when something isn’t right.
I drove home that day thinking of the positive aspects of the exam. I tried not to dwell on the uncertainty.
The day had been warm, so I’d left Sam and Finn at home. They greeted me at the door, tails wagging. I bent over to say hello. Sam pushed Finn aside, took one sniff and planted a large doggy kiss in the middle of my upper lip. Finn pushed his nose to my face and sniffed approvingly.
“You kissed me,” I said. “I’m back to normal, aren’t I?”
She did it again. I kissed her back. I’d been waiting for my new life to start. Her kisses signaled the first day.
Mary-Jo Murphy
Seven years ago, in late May, I found Sam waiting at the end of a dirt road about forty miles off the Nevada interstate. My then boyfriend had taken one of the many undefined side trips that happened on the way to visit his dad in Wyoming.
Sam was going to be shot, because her owner had left her behind, and the woman with whom she had bonded has been killed in an off-road vehicle accident. Jim, the stepfather and widower had two other Border Collies, and an aging father to care for. Jim’s work kept him away for days at a time. He couldn’t handle a year-old pup, and this wasn’t a place touched by rescue organizations. This was the boonies.
Five months before I had been diagnosed with cancer. All the plans had been in place for me to receive chemo and radiation. One day, while waiting in my oncologist’s office my cell phone rang. It was my doctor at UCSF. The recommendation was that I didn’t need chemo-radiation. I could be followed at the Dysplasia Clinic. The call was my reprieve, and that is why I could be on this trip where I met Sam.
She was confined to a small cage with food and water. I retrieved a dog biscuit from my car and offered it to her. She stared cautiously at me. I had already decided that if this didn’t seem right, I wasn’t going to consider taking her. It wasn’t my responsibility to save every creature. I take dog ownership seriously. This would be a ten to fifteen year commitment. I couldn’t just go rescuing every abandoned canine that came my way. Could I? But I was drawn to her intensity.
She was uninterested in my food offering. When I stuck my fingers through the cage and told her how beautiful she was, she moved in close enough so that I could rub her neck. Her intense brown eyes held my gaze. I made a decision.
Jim seemed relieved and agreed to put off the execution. On the way back to California we retraced the forty miles up the dirt road. She was waiting. After a bit of struggle to get her into a kennel, I returned home with her to Southern California, a place as different from her old world as my new cancer reality was for me.
Sam and I both had reprieves. We were alive. Not only was my cancer diagnosis not a death sentence, but my treatment plan required only a bit of inconvenience and discomfort every few months. We settled in.
A year later, Sam and I met a pet psychic. I hadn’t meant to have a session. I simply showed up at my favorite pet store. Linda, the owner displays some of my dog prints and cards, and I thought I could answer questions if anyone was interested in commissioning a pet portrait.
“She has an opening,” Linda said as I got out of the car. A world-known pet communicator had a moment for us. I couldn’t resist.
“She was waiting for her life to start,” the psychic told me. “She was only there for the woman. That’s who she bonded with. When she was gone…”
Sam had a few other things to say that day. She commented about the new four month-old Border Collie puppy I’d somehow acquired. She said Finn was okay but no more! That was fine with me. My intention had been to rescue an adult, but Sam is dominant and bossy, a bit like me, and the rescue lady thought she’d do much better with someone who would follow her every command. Who can resist a puppy?
I could have. A few weeks after I got Sam home I realized I would have resisted her if I hadn’t felt so absolutely comfortable about my prognosis.
“Anything that happens will be picked up in the precancerous stage,” I’d been told by my practitioner at UCSF.
I had driven back to pick up Sam, had rescued her, because I planned to see us into old age. Sam’s and now Finn’s presence in my life reminded me of my hopefulness.
Cancer is all about mortality. It’s a word that causes you to position yourself somewhere between birth and death, and to begin counting. I thought I knew my future, but cancer is tricky.
Three years later the bullet I had dodged found its target. My tumor recurred and this time the treatment was inescapable.
The day of my first chemo I drove myself to the treatment. Sam and Finn were with me. If the weather is cool they accompany me on my travels. My car is their den. Before I went into the oncologist’s office I explained only that I would be back, and gave them a job. “Be good, and watch the car.”
After my purple cocktail, I returned, feeling unchanged. As I usually do, I rolled down the back window to greet them and to accept greetings.
Finn had not yet mastered dog kisses. He watches Sam and seemed only to understand that they had something to do with making nose to face contact. He didn’t understand the tongue movement. Sam however usually greets me with generous licks. That day, just minutes after my chemo, her hello was cautious and kiss-less. Her tail wagged, she made eye contact, but avoided my face. Finn did the same. Something was different about me, and she picked it up immediately. I wasn’t sure what he understood, but for the next three months he followed her lead.
Border Collies need work. From April to July these active dogs endured my declining energy and health. Instead of hours of walking and herding, running on the beach and ball chasing, they focused on one job – waiting for me to recover. When my sisters, or my cousin or my boyfriend were here to help me, their activity level increased a bit, but the usual expectations had been put aside. “Mom is sick,” they seemed to say to each other. “Our job is watch and wait.” And so they did.
Five weeks after finishing my treatment I began to take short, slow walks with them, always close to home. They were patient. pacing themselves as I regained my confidence. I would take them to the park and throw balls for a short time, then, I returned to bed. I had days when I could make it around the block only three or four times. I still didn’t feel normal. I had begun to wonder how I would know when I was myself again, when I had moved into a recovery phase.
Three months after I finished treatment, I had a follow-up appointment, this time with my radiation-oncologist. He reassured me that I would gain back the twenty-five pounds I’d lost. He examined me, and said that I still had some healing to do, but that he didn’t feel the tumor.
The news was good, but guarded. It will be five to seven years before I have a clean bill of health, before I know for sure that my cancer is gone, years that will include follow-up exams and always those radioactively scary PET scans that light up when something isn’t right.
I drove home that day thinking of the positive aspects of the exam. I tried not to dwell on the uncertainty.
The day had been warm, so I’d left Sam and Finn at home. They greeted me at the door, tails wagging. I bent over to say hello. Sam pushed Finn aside, took one sniff and planted a large doggy kiss in the middle of my upper lip. Finn pushed his nose to my face and sniffed approvingly.
“You kissed me,” I said. “I’m back to normal, aren’t I?”
She did it again. I kissed her back. I’d been waiting for my new life to start. Her kisses signaled the first day.
Mary-Jo Murphy