Saving Sadie Read online

  She thought for a moment, then set down her glass. “I am amazed by what you’re doing,” she replied. “Sadie is extraordinary, and the experience of seeing all this in person has opened my heart even wider than before.” She reached down and stroked Sadie, who was curled up contentedly at her feet.

  “Before I came here I only had your description of how Sadie goes to the bathroom, how you carry her outside, hold her abdomen and massage her while she urinates, and then clean her up afterward. But now I have observed it with my own eyes. I see you soaking Sadie in your bathtub, in your own bathroom, then cutting the bandage off her tail, treating the wound, and re-bandaging it. I see how you feed her, how you give her her medicine, mixing it with raw meat and feeding her each individual pill inside the meat, from a paper plate with a special fork.” She paused to reach for her wineglass.

  “I see you driving to Illinois, an hour drive each way, twice a week, so Sadie can rehab at TOPS,” she continued. “And I know you are too proud to admit it, but clearly you are sacrificing; you are going without in terms of your own needs, just so you can better provide for Sadie.”

  “I’m only doing it because I love Sadie so much,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I realized this was the first time I had admitted it to anyone other than myself. “I so want her to be able to walk again.”

  “And she will walk again,” Marnette insisted. “Because you, Joal, do not take no for an answer. Do you have any idea how inspiring you are?”

  I blanched. “Me? Inspiring?”

  “Yes. You are an inspiration. Not just to me, but to everyone who meets you and Sadie, or reads about the two of you online or in the media. It’s a miracle, what’s happening here. My sister adopted this pitiful creature, just a helpless ball of fur curled up on the ground, and look what she’s got now. And this is still just the beginning. I know that Sadie was sent to us for a reason.” Marnette stroked Sadie’s head, and Sadie, as if she understood, responded with a happy little bark.

  I twirled the stem of my wineglass between my fingertips. “I sometimes wonder,” I began slowly, “do you think Mom and Dad would be proud of me? Proud of what I’m doing?” We had endured such a difficult adolescence, and I was still just in my early twenties when our parents passed away. It was only with Marnette that I could talk about these things. She understood because she had lived the sorrow, too.

  “I know they would be proud,” she insisted. “Joal, you have always been someone who never gives up once you set your mind to something. I still remember you as a little girl, teaching yourself how to ice-skate. You cleared all the snow off that pond at Whitnall Park and then practiced figure skating like you were training for the Olympics. You were trying to master turning on one blade so you just did it, over and over again. No matter how many times you fell, you just got right back up again.” She smiled at the memory. “Mom and Dad would be proud of you.” She paused. “But no prouder than I am right now.”

  * * *

  Friday, July 6, the day before Marnette was leaving, was the second Jammin’ on Janesville, following the first one a month earlier in June. If anything, July’s Jammin’ on Janesville was even busier than the previous one, and Marnette reveled in the live music, the crowds, the food, the nonstop party atmosphere that filled block after block of Janesville Road.

  Marnette joined Sadie and me at our station at the booth in front of Dr. Jodie’s clinic, greeting visitors and handing out Sadie’s business card to everyone who passed by. I was humbled and amazed by how many people were coming to see Sadie again after having met her at the last Jammin’, and how many people were seeing her for the first time, determined to meet “that amazing dog” in person after reading about her in the newspaper or online. It looked like all of our intense outreach efforts were finally starting to pay off, as people asked to meet “the famous Sadie.”

  Sadie, for her part, was an absolute star once again, showing no fear, irritation, or fatigue as she sat up, tall and steady in her Little Tikes green plastic wagon, a yellow bandanna knotted jauntily around her neck, as grown-ups poked and stroked and petted her, and inquisitive children squealed and grabbed on to her fur, asking all kinds of questions about what was wrong with her, why she couldn’t walk, and so on. In the midst of all this, a petite, fortysomething woman with long blond hair approached me, introduced herself as Lisa, and asked if her friend and patient, Noah, could say hello to Sadie.

  Noah was a towering African American man in his mid-thirties, with a muscular build and trim mustache and beard. His deep-set dark brown eyes looked lost and vacant, filled with inexpressible sorrow. I sensed immediately that Noah had some special needs and would do better in a more private setting, engaging with Sadie one on one without all the noise and commotion of the street fair. So, leaving Marnette to man our station, I pulled Sadie in her wagon to a quiet, shady corner beside the clinic and away from the road, with Lisa and Noah following close behind.

  “Hello, Noah. I’m Joal,” I said, looking into his eyes and smiling once we had found a good spot to talk. I lifted Sadie out of her wagon and laid her in the grass. Then I sat down beside her and motioned for Noah to sit as well. “This is Sadie,” I said gently. “She likes it when you pet her. See?” I ran my hand over Sadie’s head and down her back to demonstrate. Shyly at first, Noah reached out and patted Sadie’s head, then touched her head again and let his hand rest there a moment longer. Sadie, for her part, seemed mesmerized, looking right at Noah, staring into his haunted brown eyes with a kind of recognition as she drank in his attention.

  As Noah and Sadie bonded, Lisa sat down in the grass beside me and told me Noah’s story. Six years earlier, in 2006, Noah had been working for a defense contractor in Iraq, at the height of the Iraq War, when he’d suffered a traumatic brain injury after being shot by a sniper. Noah had been riding in a truck as part of a convoy when a bullet from an AK-47 entered through his right ear and ended up lodged deep in the center of his brain, where it could not be removed.

  “Noah was flown back to the U.S. on life support and not expected to survive,” Lisa continued. “He’s had multiple surgeries and infections, too many to count. He still has some right-side paralysis and language issues, but he has learned to walk again and his speech is improving. He’s made amazing progress, but he still has a really long and rough road ahead of him.” Lisa explained that she was a registered nurse who owned a place called Acres of Hope and Aspirations, a small farm and rehabilitation center nearby where Noah was just one of many people she was working with to overcome brain injuries and disabilities.

  With tears in my eyes, I excused myself for a moment and went to get Marnette from the booth out front, telling her she had to come see what I was seeing. When we returned to the quiet space beside the building, Sadie was stretched out in the grass between Lisa and Noah. Lisa, arms circling her knees, was beaming, and Noah, this gentle giant of a man who had endured so much, was petting Sadie very gently from head to tail and speaking soft words that only the two of them could understand. Two damaged, troubled souls had reached out, each finding healing in the other.

  “This is absolutely incredible,” I whispered to Marnette, shaking my head as goose bumps rose and a chill danced down my spine. “Noah was shot in the head and had to learn to walk again. Sadie was shot in the head and is learning to walk again. They have a bond. It’s like they speak the same language, like they understand each other.”

  “That’s because they do understand each other,” Marnette insisted. “I told you a few days ago that I believe Sadie was sent to us for a reason. I think we’re seeing that reason in action, right here and now. This is Sadie’s gift to the world. There’s no limit to what she can achieve.” She smiled warmly and gave me a knowing wink. “But it’s up to us to make it happen.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Acres and Acres of Hope

  Watching the way Sadie interacted with Noah, I knew Marnette was right: Sadie had a very special gift to share with the world. But I still was
n’t sure exactly what form that gift would take, or how to bring it to fruition. I was working forty hours a week and Sadie was rehabbing a lot more than forty hours a week—how could we find the time, money, energy, and resources to do anything more than we were doing now?

  True, there were events such as Jammin’ on Janesville, where Sadie could meet and interact with people, spreading her message of hope, love, and second chances, and we had been contacted by several businesses and organizations that wanted to set up meet-and-greets with Sadie. But how can we go bigger? I wondered. How can we take this further and be more proactive, more organized, and reach more people? In my mind, the only way was to first get Sadie fully rehabbed and back on her feet. Then, once her treatments, therapy, and basic everyday care were less intensive and less time-consuming, we could focus not just on raising her profile in order to generate financial and other support, but on spreading Sadie’s special message far and wide. We’ll get there, girl, I promised her. But for now, it’s all about getting you better.

  * * *

  As the summer of 2012 progressed, so did Sadie. She was becoming stronger, more confident, and more alert and energetic by the day. Fur sprouted on her forehead, in dark little tufts around where the stitches had been, and you had to look closely even to see that she’d had an operation. Her tail wound, since it was much bigger, was taking longer to heal, but even that was looking better and better by the day. Her therapy, treatment, and rehab continued in earnest, and we were never short of suggestions and recommendations for new things to try. For example, one of Sadie’s followers sent us an illustration of a dog with numbered points located on various parts of the body, along with instructions on how to do Jin Shin Jyutsu, an alternative therapy designed to “harmonize the life energy in the body” by using one’s fingers to hold and release the body’s blocked energy points.

  We also added more massage, now with a massage therapist for humans who had extended her practice to working on animals, too. I was open to trying anything and everything, as long as it didn’t harm Sadie, of course, figuring we would never know what treatment, therapy, or procedure would provide that major breakthrough we were hoping and praying for, until we saw it in action.

  Things were going so well that I was taken totally by surprise when I experienced my first serious “Sadie meltdown.” It was a hot, hazy Saturday afternoon in early August and I had been working with Sadie for hours, on the Power Plate, the peanut ball, the trampoline, and some new indoor exercises I had come up with, trying to train her to use her legs to climb the stairs from the living room up to the bedrooms on her own. I would place a small piece of food on every other step, and the idea was that Sadie would have to lift herself from one step to the next to get the next piece of food.

  I was behind her on the stair, supporting her rump while she reached forward with her front paws. We had gone up two steps, very slowly and awkwardly, but now she had stopped, all forty-plus pounds of her, and was absolutely refusing to move.

  “Come on, Sadie,” I coaxed, giving her a stronger and more pointed push. “Just one more step for me, okay?” I pushed again, bracing my back and straining my muscles as sweat poured down my forehead. Sadie plopped down on the step and folded her front legs beneath her. The gauntlet had been thrown down; clearly, she had no intention of moving.

  “Fine. Have it your way!” I snapped, sliding my arms beneath her belly, lifting her up, and placing her back on the living room carpet at the base of the stairs. “Why can’t you just do what I want? Why?” Tears sprang to my eyes, just a trickle at first, but then the dam burst. “Sadie, don’t you see that I’m trying to help you?” I sobbed. “I just want you to be able to walk again.”

  My frustration really had nothing to do with trying to help her climb the stairs, I quickly realized. My meltdown was because here we were in August, I had had Sadie for a little more than three months, and, even with all the progress she’d made, she was nowhere close to where I thought she’d be by now. Sadie was still in a diaper and wasn’t urinating when and how I wanted her to, she wasn’t standing on her own, and she definitely wasn’t walking.

  “How much more do we have to do?” I cried out loud. I sank to the bottom step and sat with my face buried in my hands, letting the tears flow around my fingers. “Why isn’t this working?”

  Suddenly I felt a cold, wet nudge against my arm. Then another one, more insistent this time. I looked up and it was Sadie, trying to get my attention. She smiled her doggy smile and wagged her tail. I stroked her head, rubbing the base of her ears. Her bright, caramel-brown eyes gazed at me, full of love and optimism, as if to say, “Please don’t be mad at me, Mom. I’m doing the best I can. It’s really hard to get my legs to work the way we want them to.”

  “I know, girl, I know. I’m so sorry.” I pulled her close, kissed her forehead, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, letting the thick, soft fur around her neck absorb my tears. I realized that I was probably just stressed, overly tired, and in desperate need of a break. It wasn’t fair to take my frustrations out on Sadie, so I phoned my dog-sitter, Jeff, and asked if he would come and take Sadie for the day. “I’ll do better than that,” he promised over the phone, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Pack an overnight bag for Sadie and I’ll bring her back tomorrow morning.”

  I hung up the phone with a sigh of relief. Jeff to the rescue. Slightly built and soft-spoken with short brown hair and glasses, Jeff, along with Marnette and Dr. Jodie, had become a vitally important member of Team Sadie. A Vietnam War veteran now dealing with very serious health problems, Jeff and I first met years ago, back in the 1980s when he, his ex-wife, and I were all members of a Corvette Club in Milwaukee. (Yep, that’s me, always into cars!)

  When I moved to Illinois we lost contact, but then I ran into him at a club reunion in the early 2000s and after that we kept in touch. By the time I moved back to Wisconsin in 2007, Jeff had retired, and he began pet-sitting for me, taking care of Sparky, Kit Kat, and Presley, the other dog I had at the time, when I was working out of town or had jobs that kept me gone from morning until night. When Sadie came into the picture, Jeff stepped up and quickly became my “right-hand man,” driving Sadie to swimming when I was at work, and helping out whenever there were scheduling or other conflicts.

  After Jeff came and picked up Sadie, I took a long, much-needed nap. Afterward I felt somewhat better, but still not my normal self. The despair and exhaustion I felt was bone-deep, seeping into the very core of my being. That night I went to sleep at seven thirty and woke up several times during the night, agonizing about why I felt so depressed and frustrated over a helpless animal. I loved Sadie, and I knew she was doing the best she could.

  One of Sadie’s many gifts to me is her teaching me about patience, I thought. And today, I was a very bad pupil. But another of her gifts is hope and perseverance—I will try again and I will do better tomorrow. Sadie is always working on me, even when I’m least aware of it. She is pushing and prodding and challenging me, forcing my heart and my soul to grow bigger, more open, and more embracing than ever before.

  After that I fell into a deep, refreshing, dreamless sleep, with the whisper of a prayer for Sadie still on my lips as I snuggled under the covers with Sparky, Miss Kitty, and Kit Kat. I realized how much I missed Sadie, how much it hurt not to have her sleeping on the dog bed on the floor beside my bed, hearing her occasional grumbles in the night. Our family was not complete without Sadie present, and we could never be whole without her here.

  When Jeff brought Sadie home later the next morning, I threw my arms around her and covered her in kisses. “I know that sometimes I need to be patient with you, Sadie,” I told her, “but sometimes, you’ll have to be patient with me, too.” She replied with a little bark, and a bigger-than-ever wag of her tail.

  * * *

  Throughout the summer of 2012 we were generating a lot of media coverage online for Sadie and for her story. Laura Simpson of the Great Animal Rescue Chase was reg
ularly posting articles about Sadie on her websites and also on the Care2.com website, and dozens of people were sharing links to our articles, website, and social media sites. This was all wonderful, but I knew we needed more coverage from traditional media—TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers—if we were going to garner the kind of support we needed for Sadie long term.

  Fortunately, around this time, my friend Robert Ritholz sent me an article from the Daily Herald, a newspaper out of Arlington Heights, Illinois, covering the northern and western suburbs of Chicago. The article mentioned our mutual friend, Jack Taylor, who was a radio announcer on WGN many years ago and a beloved TV anchorman on the five-and ten-o’clock Channel 9 news in Chicago. Jack was going to be hosting a new show called A Few Minutes with Jack Taylor on Saturdays on WDCB, a public radio station owned by the College of DuPage in Illinois. Sensing an opportunity here, I decided to give Jack a call.

  Jack, who is such a polite and funny gentleman, was happy to hear from me and listened intently as I told him all about how I had met, fallen in love, and adopted Sadie, a dog with special needs, and then asked him if there was anything he could do to help me spread the word about Sadie’s plight. He immediately offered his assistance.

  The first two connections Jack arranged didn’t pan out, but then he put me in touch with Jamie Sotonoff at the Herald, who put me in touch with Burt Constable, the Herald’s seasoned reporter and columnist, and Burt asked to interview Sadie and me! The local connection for the Daily Herald’s readership was that Sadie received rehab at TOPS in Grayslake, on the outer edges of the Chicago suburbs, and also the fact that I had lived in northern Illinois for several years before returning to my home state of Wisconsin.

  After clearing it with the staff, Sadie and I met Burt and the photographer at TOPS, where they took numerous photos and got to observe Sadie’s therapy in action as she received cranial-sacral massage and worked out on the Hydro-Treadmill. The interview with Burt lasted well over an hour and seemed to go very well, but as with the article in the Waukesha Freeman three months earlier, we waited on pins and needles for several weeks to see how it turned out.