Freedom and I have been together 10 years
this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998
with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't
open all the way even after surgery, it was
broken in 4 places. She's my baby.
When Freedom came
in she could not stand. Both wings were
broken, her left wing in 4 places. She was
emaciated and covered in lice. We made the
decision to give her a chance at life, so I
took her to the vets office. From then on, I
was always around her. We had her in a huge
dog carrier with the top off, and it was
loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to
lay in. I used to sit and talk to her,
urging her to live, to fight; and she would
lay there looking at me with those big brown
eyes. We also had to tube feed her for
weeks.
This went on for
4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't
stand. It got to the point where the
decision was made to euthanize her if she
couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't
want to cross that line between torture and
rehab, and it looked like death was winning.
She was going to be put down that Friday,
and I was supposed to come in on that
Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to
the center that Thursday, because I couldn't
bear the thought of her being euthanized;
but I went anyway, and when I walked in
everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I
went immediately back to her dog cage; and
there she was, standing on her own, a big
beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I
was just about in tears by then. That was a
very good day.
We knew she could never fly, so the director
asked me to glove train her. I got her used
to the glove, and then to jesses, and we
started doing education programs for schools
in western
Washington .
We wound up in the newspapers, radio
(believe it or not) and some TV . Miracle
Pets even did a show about us.
In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with
non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3, which
is not good (one major organ plus
everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of
chemo. Lost the hair - the whole bit. I
missed a lot of work. When I felt good
enough, I would go to Sarvey and take
Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also
come to me in my dreams and help me fight
the cancer. This happened time and time
again.
Fast forward to
November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, I
went in for my last checkup. I was told that
if the cancer was not all gone after 8
rounds of chemo, then my last option was a
stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the
tests; and I had to come back Monday for the
results. I went in Monday, and I was told
that all the cancer was gone.
