Emmy

By Kathi Streeter

November 4, 2009

I’ve hardly ever been sick a day in my life, so when I got diagnosed with breast cancer, it was like running full force into a brick wall. The tumor was graded very high for recurrence, so I had a double mastectomy and four months of intensive chemotherapy. I also saw a Homeopathic / Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor who worked with my oncologist. I breezed through the every-other-week chemotherapy regimen. To be honest, had I not gone through that, I’m not sure we would have allowed Emmy to go through cancer treatment when she was diagnosed with bone cancer. I’ve seen people get so sick with chemotherapy and we’ve known so many people that get a diagnosis of cancer, have surgery and go through chemotherapy, and a year a later we go to their funeral. I didn’t have a good feeling about surviving cancer. But the more we looked into it, the more we found out. There are a lot of different kinds of cancer, and also a lot of survivors.

Before Emmy, we had never had a female dog. We saw Emmy on the day she was born, and every week thereafter until we took her home seven weeks later. She’s so wonderful that two years later, when they had the next litter, we got a full sister to Emmy. These are great Labradors. They are bred to hunt, and we do hunt, although their primary job in life is to make us happy. They keep us going through the tough times.

When Emmy was diagnosed with bone cancer, the CSU Animal Cancer Center was conducting a limb-sparing study that she fit into. It involved a gene therapy they were investigating for use in children with bone cancer. Emmy would undergo a bone biopsy and would receive the therapy directly into the tumor site. They would then wait ten days to amputate the leg. At that time they could see how the therapy changed the tumor. It would mean ten more days that the cancer might spread. Despite the risk of waiting to amputate, we decided that if we could help some children by putting her into this study, knowing how much Emmy loves children; we’d have to try.

After her amputation, Emmy was feeling great. She received six chemotherapy treatments which she tolerated well. I called the same Homeopathic doctor that I saw during my therapy and he put Emmy on some medications to help also. Without interfering with the chemotherapy, it helped her with her energy.

She’s a happy three-legged dog. She gets tired, but she’s eleven years old and couldn’t have a better attitude. I have two horses and she still goes to the barn with me every morning and every evening, and out into the field to spread manure. When Emmy could no longer go on the big pheasant hunts in North Dakota, we arranged a special hunt for her with Rocky Mountain Roosters. I took my shotgun, and my husband took his camera. She flushed three pheasants and retrieved them all. It’s hard to balance and smell things with just one front leg, so she went down on her chin a couple times. I thought she’d be really exhausted by the end of it, but she was fine. And boy was her sister jealous when Emmy came home smelling like pheasant.

YAPS (Youth And Pet Survivors) is a program at The Children's Hospital of Denver that matches children battling health challenges with pets who are battling the same thing. They asked if I would be willing to enroll Emmy into the program. So, Emmy has a pen pal now named Ashtyn. Emmy gets letters written to her and Ashtyn puts stickers on them and writes “DOGS RULE” on the envelopes – it’s just so inspiring. I can hardly wait to get her next letter. I’m told Ashtyn loves the letters from Emmy also. They say talks the ears off her nurse about Emmy. (If you would like more information about the YAPS program, please email Anne Ingalls Gillespie at the Children’s Hospital of Denver or Meredy Razey at the CSU Animal Cancer Center.)

We send a lot of pictures back and forth, and Emmy sent flowers one day, saying she hoped Ashtyn was doing all right. In one letter, Ashtyn told of how the Make A Wish Foundation was sending her and her family to Discovery Cove in Florida. Emmy wrote back that she was very excited for her, and that she actually got to go on a Make A Wish bird hunt, and enjoyed it very much. Then, about a month ago, Emmy got a package in the mail. Inside were a letter and a little black stuffed Labrador. It wore a pink collar and in the package was a matching pink collar for Emmy. The letter told Emmy that, “My mother customized this to look just like you.” I looked at the stuffed dog. Her mother had cut off the right front leg and had sewn it shut. The little stuffed Labrador was three-legged, just like Emmy. I had to cry for that one. It’s been extremely rewarding and I look forward to what we can do next.

Animals are way ahead of us on what we need to do to enjoy life. They’ve figured it out. The thing dogs show us is to love life every day. The fact that she loved going to the Animal Cancer Center for treatment, what does that tell us? Humans think about tomorrow and we worry. The only thing she worries about is whether the clock says it’s dinnertime. And she does her lab dance at every meal.

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