pegz viz, warrior princess

Pegz checking in. I’m letting my Mom do one more blog post…about my brother, Spirit Jake. You know, about how he was so wonderful…and about how he saved her life…yada, yada, yada.

Then I (Missy Pegzy Petunia) will be taking over. It’s almost 2012, and there’ll be a new sheriff in THIS blogtown.

But for now…take it away, Mom.

**I once had a dog named Jake the Snake and I believe he saved my life. Jake was a really tall, really skinny wolf-lookin’ dog that no one else wanted.  He came home with me one snowy day, a week before Christmas in 1997.

I would love to tell the long version of his story… how his kennel at the shelter was all decorated for Christmas by the volunteers desperate to find him a family. Or how he waited for me in the parking lot to come and get him in a snowstorm, because his shelter guardian couldn’t bring herself to put him back in the shelter kennel…one more time. But the story is long and rich and there are parts only a mother could love. So we will edit.

Jake was a dog who found happiness and fun in every waking second of his day, every day, for 11 years. Jake’s only problem was that he was not food motivated…which means he was nearly impossible to train. The good news is that the only thing he really needed training on was the leash. He was a perfect gentleman in every other aspect of being a dog.

For years we could not take him for a walk around the neighborhood. He only weighed 75lbs, but he was so wiry and  wolf-like that he was a danger to himself as well as to us. One time during a trial run, he saw a friend of ours drive by on the way to work. He was so excited, he dragged me right into on-coming traffic. From then on, he was relegated to the run of the fenced-in yard.

In 2006, our beloved black lab Vita made her journey to the Bridge. Within a few months of that saddest day of my life, I woke up one morning … and could not walk. And for the next 18 months, I would not find out why.

I spent most of that time on crutches, with a cane or flat on my back. Doctor after doctor, test after test, theory after theory. Drugs that didn’t work, but made my hair fall out. Drugs that helped the pain a little but made me sleep 18 hours a day. And throughout the whole time, Jake was by my side.

Occasionally, a doctor would tell me I needed to get up and force myself to walk. One day, in a fit of desperation and thinking I was dying, I strapped the leash on the Doggie Man, grabbed my cane and said “Let’s go.” What happened then was a miracle. Instead of being dragged through the snow by a wild maniac dog, Jake proceded to lead me around the block, walking very slowly…and turning around every few steps to make sure we were not walking too fast for my new 3-legged self.  He never once tugged or pulled or made me feel like I was losing control. This gentle doggy guidance went on for 6 of those really crappy months.

There were days when the pain was so bad, I just wanted everything (like my life) to be over. Just when I would turn my face into the pillow on the couch, Jake would come nudge me and say, “Get up, Mom. We need to walk.” He never left my side.

In January of 2008, I finally found a rheumatologist at the University of Rochester (75 miles away) who figured out what was wrong with me.  (He is now my second favorite man on the planet). Within 8 weeks of the correct diagnosis and drugs, I was able to walk on my own, go back to work and be normal again.

And three weeks after I went back to work, I found the lump on Jake’s neck.

I don’t think I wasted any time kidding myself. Jake was 13 years old by this time and considering I spent tons of time lovin’ on him every day… the fact that this lump appeared so fast and was so big, spoke for itself. We did a biopsy 10 days later. In retrospect, I would never ever put an older, larger dog through that torture ever again.  One morning, before we even got the biopsy results, Jake could not get up. He couldn’t even open his eyes. The surgeon called with the bad news… a “really nasty malignancy”… just as we left him resting for the last time.

I will believe until the day I meet Jake at the Bridge, that he is the reason I didn’t give up. He wouldn’t let me. Jake is the reason I kept moving. Jake is the reason I didn’t go over the edge.

And Jake waited. He waited until he was sure I was going to be OK and back to normal…before he succumbed to the cancer that took him on his  way.

Rest peacefully, My Love.