Lira Blog Top of the Dog Chain
Lira Blog “Top of the Dog Chain”
It’s been awhile since our last Lira Blog. We’ve been waiting for just the right story.
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A couple of months ago Lira and I were visiting the adult oncology ward. We entered the room of a gentleman who was about seventyish and had a big smile on his face when he saw Lira. You could tell that he and his wife were very nice people and dog lovers. He so enjoyed it when Lira hopped up into the hospital bed and cozied up to him. Sometimes Lira will put her paw on a patients arm as if she knows that they particularly love dogs or they are very ill. It’s always a very tender thing to watch. His wife was so tickled that she started taking pictures of Lira snuggling with her husband on the hospital bed. He kept saying such wonderful things like, “You are just on top of the dog chain aren’t you.” Sometimes after a day of visiting, a particular patient stays on my mind. I thought it was so nice of him to repeatedly state how Lira was an extraordinary animal, how special she was and he must have said at least three times how he thought Lira was on top of the dog chain. This nice man and his wife stuck with me that day.
Last week we were at the elevator of the children’s ward. A staff member came up to the elevator and said that this must be the dog that visited her father on 6 north a few weeks ago. She said her father talked about Lira a lot after the visit. She was very grateful that Lira helped make her father more comfortable and that Lira made him so happy. She said that her mother even had a picture of Lira and her husband on the home page of her phone. At the time I didn’t make the connection. Lira and I see a lot of patients. In the back of my mind I knew I remembered this person but it wasn’t connecting. I told her to give our best to both of her parents. She said with tears in her eyes that her father had passed away a few weeks ago.
A couple of days later while I was enjoying some sunshine in my back yard for some unknown reason I made the connection that this was the same man that kept saying Lira was on top of the dog chain. I think it was the cell phone picture. I remembered that nice lady taking the cell phone picture and saying she was going to put it on her phone home page. I understand why she did that. For the twenty minutes that we visited her and her husband it was like he wasn’t sick at all. Most of the time we don’t know the outcome of patients and I have always thought that best. I think it was meant to be that we knew this outcome. It was bittersweet.