Angel on a Leash. David Frei
dog loves it, and I love it, too.”
“Very nice,” he said as we pulled up to the hospital.
The fare was five dollars, and I pushed a ten-dollar bill over the seat toward him.
He pushed it back. “This is on me. I think it’s wonderful what you do.”
A few weeks later, Teigh and I were in the therapy room, getting ready for another night of visiting. The therapy dog program supervisor came into the room and walked over to us.
“I have a special assignment for you tonight,” she said. “Follow me.” She led Teigh and me over to the door.
“We are going to walk out of this room together,” she began. “When we get into the hall, I am going to turn left and you are going to turn right and go down to room 214 and visit with the patient in that room. I am to know nothing about this,” she said.
This sounded like the opening scene in Mission: Impossible. I was waiting for her to say, “I will disavow any knowledge of your operation.”
The reason for this surreptitious approach was because we were still not allowed to visit patients in their rooms. The supervisor told me that the elderly patient in room 214 was a quadriplegic woman who was hurt when she had fallen off a horse recently. The nurses wanted her to see Teigh, but she couldn’t get out of bed. I guess I should have felt honored, but I didn’t want to jeopardize the entire program by breaking this basic rule.
The supervisor could see what I was thinking. “Don’t worry; this is going to work. Just do it.” Well, she was the boss.
Two nurses who I recognized were waiting for us at the end of the hall with sly smiles on their faces, indicating to me that they were indeed in on the plan. I picked up Teigh in my arms so the patient would see him right away, and we followed one of the nurses into the room.
“Carolyn, this is David with his dog, Teigh,” she introduced us. “We all thought that you would want to have a visit from them.”
“Well, I certainly do,” she said with a large smile. She was delightful and in good spirits, but bound to the bed as a quadriplegic. I was trying to figure out how to get Teigh to her. I turned to the nurse and asked, “Can I put him in bed with her?”
“I don’t know why not,” she said.
“Get me a sheet, please, and we’ll make this happen.”
I threw the sheet over the bed. “Carolyn, we are going to be careful here. Do you have any tubes or sutures?”
“No, I don’t think there’s anything here that you have to worry about.”
So, very carefully, I lifted Teigh onto the bed, placing him on his back, along her side. It’s always a bit magical that Teigh doesn’t feel like he weighs his 35 pounds when I am lifting him up to a patient.
I took Carolyn’s left arm. “Can I move your arm?” I was asking both her and the nurse. Yes from both of them.
I lifted Teigh’s head and wrapped Carolyn’s arm around him carefully, because it occurred to me that she wouldn’t feel it if it was causing a problem. The nurse pushed a chair underneath me at the bedside, and I sat down, holding on to Teigh and Carolyn.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“I’m just fine,” she said. “I’m so glad that you could come.”
“Well, we are all making a little history at the hospital tonight. I’m glad it’s with you.” I said, winking at the nurse. In keeping with the Mission: Impossible theme, I was imagining someone standing watch out in the hall.
I asked Carolyn if she had a dog.
“Sure, we have a couple of them at the farm,” she said, and that began a delightful conversation about her dogs, her farm, and her horses.
I tested her every once in a while. “Are you comfortable?” I’d ask. “I’m fine, Teigh’s fine. It’s great to have him up here with me.”
We were probably in there for about fifteen or twenty minutes. I never did look over my shoulder; I was more worried about Teigh and his new friend. When it was time to leave, I took Teigh down and pulled the cover sheet off the bed.
“That was a good visit, Carolyn,” I said. “It’s easy to tell that you’re a dog person; you were great with him.”
“He was so gentle. I think I was able to feel him a bit.”
Well, that would make our night. I wanted to believe it, too. And if Teigh got her to think like that, maybe it could be a little step on the road to recovery of some kind.
These days, you can’t just walk into a health care facility and volunteer. You must undergo extensive orientations, background checks, and health tests. The same goes for the dogs…well, the health tests anyway.
If anyone had done a background check on Teigh and Belle, it would have been discovered that they in fact had once been busted for running loose in Carl Schurz Park on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In all fairness, I contributed to their delinquency.
Many New York City parks have dog runs, of course, and Carl Schurz has two of them—one for large dogs (over 25 pounds) and another for small dogs (under 25 pounds). Brittanys just don’t fit in either category. They are just over 30 pounds, but they are a little soft to be running around with Labs and Rottweilers and the other big guys. At the same time, they are too active and a bit too large to be hanging out with the little guys.
Coming from Seattle, we—the dogs and us—were a little spoiled. There, it was relatively easy to find places to turn the dogs loose and let them run to their hearts’ content. In New York City, I had to work a little harder. We would head over to Carl Schurz (the park where the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion, sits) in the early morning hours and turn Teigh and Belle loose when it looked like the coast was clear—no kids, no picnickers, no other dogs. They would chase squirrels in front of the mansion for about ten minutes, tops, and then we would quickly gather up and head for home. Occasionally, a park worker would say something mean to them or to me, but most of the time we didn’t cause any issues.
One morning, we were running later than I liked, and there was a little more activity in the park than at our normal time, so I took the dogs down to the basketball/ hockey court, which was empty, and turned them loose. Suddenly, it was like a scene out of whatever television cop show you watch. Three official-looking park vehicles pulled up and slammed on their brakes, and people in uniform jumped out and headed right to me. I called the dogs back to me, but I didn’t make any sudden moves.
Busted. I pleaded nolo contendere (no contest), accepted the ticket, and went on my way. The fine was $100. I figured that the per-outing cost, factoring in the times we hadn’t been caught, was $10. I guess this wasn’t documented in any of our permanent records, and we were cleared for volunteer visits.
Eventually, therapy dogs were visiting patients’ rooms at Mount Sinai with everyone’s blessing. It was great because a lot of patients couldn’t get up and get to the therapy room, and we didn’t want to leave anyone out.
Belle was my partner one night when we visited Alice, who was in the hospital because she had suffered a stroke. She was coherent and in good spirits when we popped in, but she didn’t have total control over her body.
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