CHAPTER TWENTY

Leaf the Healer

AFTER LINDA BROUGHT ME HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL AND SETTLED me into bed, she headed out to the drugstore to pick up my postsurgery prescriptions and then to doggy day care to bring home Leaf. Meanwhile, happy to be home, I fell into a deep sleep.

Eventually my ticket-to-life deliverer bounded into the bedroom to greet me. When he smelled all the strange hospital odors that still clung to my body, he became extraordinarily quiet, attentive, and affectionate. Pulling himself up with his paws on the side of the bed, he scrutinized and sniffed me carefully. Although my prescription-drug-laced breath and swollen face must have surprised him, he still licked my cheek. There’s nothing quite like unconditional love.

“Hi boy,” I said softly. “How are you doing?” I petted his head and swiftly fell back to sleep.

My wife had a lot on her shoulders. She had to administer to me on a strict schedule from a portable plastic file cabinet full of pills. One day, she gave me something at noon that I was supposed to take at dinnertime. Anxious that I’d suffer some traumatic effect, Linda called Nurse Jody to confess. The stalwart and seasoned neurosurgery professional assured my wife that I’d be all right.

It was essential to my recovery that I slept in a darkened room. Linda shut the blinds and hung sheets over the curtains to allow in the least amount of light. She kept me as comfortable as possible. I alternated between sleeping, asking if it was time yet, please, for pain medication, and believing I ruled the world.

In between taking care of and monitoring me, Linda also handled all our pets’ needs. Then she would head upstairs to her office to work on our writing projects, answer e-mails, and talk to friends and family about how I was doing.

To her horror, I climbed the stairs to her office one day. “I thought you were asleep!” she gasped in alarm.

“Let’s take Leaf to the dog park,” I said. At that moment I felt this was a reasonable request.

“How about if we go out in a day or two? After you’ve had time to get more rest? You’ve been through a lot, you know.”

“Well, if you don’t want to drive us, I’ll take him to the dog park myself.”

Linda got up from her desk. She rushed over to where I teetered on the top step.

“Come on downstairs,” Linda cajoled. “I’ll make you some tea.”

Sounding like Homer Simpson, I crooned, “Uhmm. Tea.”

She escorted me downstairs and deposited me on the living room couch. Leaf, being a good caregiver-team member, came over to seal the deal. He planted himself with his body across my leg so I wouldn’t get up. While Linda made tea in the kitchen, I thought I also heard the sound of rattling metal. Was she hiding the car keys?

As the days of my recovery at home continued, Leaf worked hard to get me to become more active. He frequently brought his favorite ball to me, and his eyes pleaded for playtime. “OK, here it goes,” I would say, throwing the ball down the hallway for him to chase. It wasn’t our beloved dog park. But it was the best I could do.

The first day Linda drove Leaf and me to the dog park in an attempt to get back to our normal routine, I was every bit as much of a sight as the recovering patients I’d seen in Dr. Nussbaum’s office. A tan baseball cap covered the neatly stitched surgery scar that wound from the center of my skull to below my ear. It would eventually be covered by my hair. But in this early stage, its swollen pink stitches were visible. The right side of my face blossomed with black-and-blue bruises. I looked like an extra from the movie Fight Club.

I sat on the picnic bench, debilitated and morose. I didn’t have enough strength to throw the ball for my eager dog. Instead, Leaf had to settle for Linda. He looked disappointed when she didn’t throw his ball as far. Each time he brought it back, he dropped it at my feet instead of hers. His face read, She throws like a girl.

The day after I got home, our neighbor, a kind man with a quintessential Minnesotan accent, knocked at our back door. Linda was upstairs working, so I answered. When I saw who it was, I remembered that he had offered to cut our grass.

“I finished the lawn,” he said after I opened the door. I motioned for him to come in, but he stayed at the doorstep. Maybe because this was his first glimpse of my bruised face and swollen eye.

“Thanks so much,” I said. I would have liked to be more cheerful. But as he stood in the doorway, bright sunlight shone behind him and hit my eyes like bricks. My head started pounding with pain.

Trying to be helpful, he said, “You have to remember to pick up those pinecones. They got stuck in my mower when I ran over them. Almost broke the blades.”

I knew my neighbor, retired from a full-time job he’d held for thirty years, meant well. He wanted me to know that I had to take care of this pinecone business if I didn’t want damage to my own lawn mower.

After he left and I closed the door, I went back to bed feeling depleted that I hadn’t been able to keep up with my lawn. I resolved to free myself from this uncomfortable state of dependency.

A couple of weeks into my recovery, Linda and I walked with Leaf by my side along the Mississippi River in dog-park heaven. I threw the ball for Leaf to chase, but it landed in water too deep for his comfort zone.

A small fish jumped near where his ball had landed. Leaf was not about to swim where there might be creatures underneath trying to nibble at his paws. He stared at the ball, turned his head to look at me, and barked.

Surprisingly, my little guy mirrored the determination I now had. He was not going to ask anyone for help. I’m going to man up, he seemed to say.

Leaf tentatively moved toward the ball, which now floated even farther away. He quickly lost his nerve and backed off. He barked at the ball again. He whined and pleaded for it to change course and return to him.

Leaf knew how to swim. He just didn’t seem to be confident in himself in these rapidly moving waters. The swift river currents would give anyone pause. They might be strong enough to sweep up a small dog and carry him away.

Leaf’s frustration grew. I prepared to remove my shoes and wade out to rescue my fellow’s ball. Linda said, “He has so many other balls. Just let that one go.”

Of course, her logic made sense. But my brain still wasn’t consistently sending or receiving logical thought. “He’s really upset. He needs his ball,” I replied.

Before I could finish untying my shoelaces, a family walked by with its own short-legged dog trotting alongside. Their dog, a terrier-mix, took note of the situation and instantly figured out what was happening. From the shore, the dog looked at Leaf alternately pining for and glaring at his ball floating away on top of the dark water.

Without hesitation, she jumped into the water, swam, grabbed the ball in her mouth, and brought it back to shore. Her family watched the scene unfold. When she dropped the ball at Leaf’s feet, they shouted, “Good girl!”

Leaf grabbed the precious ball and wagged his tail with gusto. “Thank you,” I said to the dog’s cheering section. They looked quizzically at my tan baseball hat and visible scar. Their expressions conveyed both sympathy and the instant revulsion I was becoming accustomed to.

“What’s your dog’s name?” Linda asked.

This broke the Frankenstein monster spell. “Lizzy,” they answered. They proceeded to tell us what a great dog their little pooch was.

“She’s very brave,” I added, as they turned away to continue their walk. “Thank you,” I called after them. I felt grateful that I hadn’t needed to get my feet wet.

After they left, Linda looked relieved. “I’m so glad that little hero kept you from going in after Leaf’s ball. What if you had slipped on the rocks?”

As we resumed our walk, I thought about Lizzy. She’d made the conscious decision to help a dog she didn’t know. No complaints. No fuss. Just do the good, kind deed, the right action, and be on your way. Maybe receiving help from others didn’t have to be such a sticky proposition after all.

I had to go back to my job in just a few days. I was not about to take disability. I assumed that the stigma of having been incapacitated enough to qualify for disability would follow me to any new job. Anxiety over what might happen when I went on my next business trip filled me with stress. I’d have to do computer-software training for a class of strong-willed, talkative people in my weakened and often confused state.

I would need all the help I could get. And I’d better learn how to ask for and accept it.