Comet's Tale

by Steven Wolf

  “If you have to cancel one of those appointments, be sure to call them,” she instructed me.

  “I’ll be fine. And Comet needs the training; hospitals are totally new to her.”

  “That’s good,” Freddie said without much enthusiasm. The sparkling night in Sedona when I had presented her with Ben’s painting felt as if it had taken place in our youth.

  I hadn’t seen Kylie or Lindsey since the previous September, nine months earlier. They were both staying in Omaha because of summer jobs and weren’t sure when they could get out to the lake but would coordinate a visit. Jackie was beginning a softball schedule that had her playing in a different town every day. The afternoon I arrived, she greeted me with an awkward hug and then sprinted upstairs. When all three girls convened at the house several days later, their averted eyes told me that my presence made them uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame them. I hadn’t been involved in their lives for nearly two years now, and it had been four years since I was a fully operating member of the household—time during which the girls watched as I participated less as a father and withered away from their activities.

  Although Kylie and Lindsey were both going to be in college and acting as if parents were as passé as rotary phones, there was still advice to give, finances to track, and late-night calls to answer. They were just getting their adult sea legs and naturally wanted support and love from their parents. Through my default, Freddie supplied 99 percent of that sustenance from our side of the family. Like a man adrift in a life raft, I could focus only on staying afloat.

  At dinner that night, Freddie dutifully prompted the girls to tell me about their classes, boyfriends, and summer plans. They replied in the bright tones of people on a job interview, and I responded like an overeager houseguest. Finally the meal ended and Kylie and Lindsey drove back to the city.

  At least I could be a doting parent to the dogs. In light of the brutal midday temperatures, I insisted that Cody take an afternoon break in the air-conditioned house. I didn’t reject the image of Cody’s life ending while he was terrorizing the beachfront; I just didn’t want it to be today or any other day. Besides, Sandoz was always in favor of a chilled nap. Whenever Cody stretched out on the floor next to my recliner, it was only moments before Sandoz plopped down against him. It was Comet who surprised me. Once the mass of golden hair was settled on the carpet, Comet would pick out an available space next to Cody and settle in. She’d snuggle her head on Cody’s back, refusing to move until he was once again ready for the great outdoors.

  Comet even allowed me to participate in an outside activity that did not include her. The only way I could enjoy the lake, other than standing in water up to my chin, was by motoring around on what the girls called the “handicapped Jet Ski.” My personal flotation device was an eight-foot-long battery-powered pontoon boat with a plastic propeller mounted at the back of each float. A metal frame anchored a meshlike passenger sling between the pontoons. The propellers were controlled by metal switches on each armrest. Even in sticky, scorching weather, Cody and Sandoz would leap onto the boat, each taking a position at the head of a pontoon. The craft had a top speed of five miles per hour, not fast enough to generate even the tiniest wake. It looked like I was in a motorized lawn chair with two golden slippers on my feet. While baby Sandoz snoozed on one pontoon, Cody remained vigilant on the other, observing my movements and staying awake for as long as I could tolerate floating. He loved to go with me, and I loved having him. It gave us a chance to talk.

  I was ensconced in the beach-level bedroom and sleeping alone. “I don’t want to make your pain worse by moving around in bed” was Freddie’s reason for staying in the master bedroom. Other than not knowing what was going on with the rest of the family, I had no quarrel with the arrangement. My books were placed on shelves lining both sides of the room’s fireplace, and I had easy access to the beach from French doors opening to the outside patio. Comet didn’t object because she had an unobstructed view of the whole stretch of sand from the door’s windows. Plus, Cody was now her roommate. Comet still froze in strict disapproval, demanding exit, whenever I went outside. But once she saw me untie my “Jet Ski,” she leaped onto the bed, content with an uninterrupted nap. I had the feeling that Comet not only approved of my time with Cody, she encouraged it.

  Comet became more businesslike over the summer as she learned to negotiate the medical facilities where Freddie had scheduled appointments with my longtime team of physicians. There was a big difference between those places and the retail stores in Sedona where I had trained Comet to tolerate groups of people. There the challenge was to get Comet to stay focused amid a bustling crowd, whereas in a hospital the whole environment was subdued. People waited in orderly lines, almost afraid to talk, as they watched medical personnel whispering to other patients. Couples sat with heads lowered and voices hushed. Piped music lulled other folks into an apparently comatose state.

  From our very first visit to a medical office, Comet assumed a professional reserve that fit right in. Ignoring comments about her beauty and her service vest, she would march directly to the checkin counter, looking to neither the left nor the right. She adopted a bored attitude during the ensuing confusion about whether a dog should be allowed in examination rooms or near the arms of x-ray equipment and scanners. By this time, I had acquired business cards that summarized the ADA service animal dos and don’ts, highlighting Comet’s right to access. The coat-and-tie demeanor exuded by this exotic animal demanded that a decision be made quickly, allowing us to efficiently complete our business. Inevitably, the technicians, nurses, and doctors would agree that Comet should be allowed to enter the sterile halls of the medical profession.

  The hospital staff’s strict attitude was actually a false front. After a Comet sighting, staff and doctors alike could be heard breaking out their baby patter. The sense of order often hid the genuine affection for animals that prevailed in every medical facility we visited. After the initial shock, an unspoken agreement would be reached: we won’t question Comet as long as she remains professionally prim and proper. The treaty rules were suspended after a few visits to my regular providers. By then Comet had cast her spell, and instead of being treated like an unexpected IRS agent, she received the type of fawning attention normally reserved for celebrities. Receptionists may have needed to look at my records to remember my name, but Comet was hailed like an iconic athlete—Pelé, Nenê, Comet.

  The series of doctor appointments validated Pam’s assessment earlier in the year that I was getting worse. The medical report from the internist coordinating my care spelled it out: “Mr. Wolf has progressive paresthesia involving his legs and feet complicated by bilateral thigh and buttock pain along with dispersed lower back pains. There is no satisfactory medical or surgical remedy for his multilevel disc disease and at this time he is considered permanently and totally disabled.”

  I had known for a long time that I was on a road to nowhere with my junker of a body. But I had fantasized that it might be like Arizona state route 373, a stretch of road in the White Mountains known to locals as the highway to nowhere. On Route 373 you wind through seemingly endless mountain passes, with rarely another car in sight. Your passengers get restless and bored. They doubt your sense of direction or that there is any point in riding along with you. The medical version of the journey features rising uncertainty exacerbated by guilt and depression. Each road you think might lead out of the wilderness ends at the beginning. Herniated discs, dehydrated discs, spinal stenosis, deteriorating disc disease, scar tissue, neuropathy, bone spurs, arthritic facet joints; it doesn’t matter all that much. The standard treatment is always the same: weight loss, ice, rest, aspirin, physical therapy, more drugs, and additional tests. Lost in a forest of frustration, you find yourself driving in circles, going nowhere.

  But … at the terminus of Arizona’s highway to nowhere is the resort community of Greer, a picturesque village nestled eighty-five hundred feet above sea level in a glorious
mountain valley of fragrant pines. The Little Colorado River is birthed in the mountain range that rises above Greer, and it burbles through the middle of town in a twenty-foot-wide reflective ribbon filled with trout. Eating warm blueberry cobbler topped with a scoop of hard vanilla ice cream while reclining on the deck of the Rendezvous Diner is a definition of fine that not a lot of people ever know. Mix in a beauty so rare and quiet that it almost penetrates your skin, and a person can’t help but feel that life is good—damn good—and the winding journey through the White Mountains was worth it. Who cares if in the winter it snows like it’ll never stop and the temperature falls far below freezing? Experiencing a summer day like that makes bad weather just an annoyance.

  That’s what I had been trying to find these last few years—my own Greer and enough good days to make the bad ones not so bad. I had been lucky with that spinal fusion when I was sixteen. My surgeon had warned me at the time that it was not a total cure for what ailed me, but until the basketball game at the YMCA, the pain had been chased into the mountains often enough for me to frequently delight in life’s homemade desserts. If my main hurdle was going to be back pain that was a few degrees more intense than bad, that wasn’t an unacceptable price to pay.

  Now, however, any illusions about what the future might hold for me evaporated. My pain specialist had called me in to review with him one of the quality-of-life charts that I periodically completed.

  “Take a look at this,” he said. “It wasn’t too long ago that you were at level ten.” I peeked at the paper. Level 10: Go to work/volunteer each day. Normal daily activities and social life. Active family life. “Despite what we’ve been doing, you’re now at a two or less.” Level 2: Get out of bed but not showered and dressed. Stay at home all day.

  “Steve, we need to change our approach. Some of my patients are having great results with the fentanyl transdermal system. I think you should try—”

  “Wait a minute! Isn’t that the stuff I heard about on the news? It’s two hundred times more powerful than heroin! Didn’t they say it used to be sold on the street as something called China White?” Comet stood as my voice got louder and she was now stretching in front of me, inviting my touch. I ignored her. I knew that the minute I started petting her, my indignation would lose some major velocity. But Comet’s intrusion into the conversation had already had its effect. I lost my place in my planned pontification about God, flag, and the American way—just say no to drugs.

  “Listen to me, Wolf.” The doctor’s sharp tone made me snap my mouth shut. “Pain is sometimes useful. It can force a patient to rest or to stop doing a harmful activity.” But, he explained, untreated pain is like a muscle conditioned by lifting weights. The nerves become more effective at sending pain signals to the brain, so that eventually the brain will flinch even at harmless stimuli. The same input that was once tolerable hurts in increasingly damaging ways. Most medications cannot keep up with the escalating pain cycle without causing stomach ulcers or kidney damage. Strong narcotics can.

  “We can get rid of most of the other medications that are causing you a lot of side effects,” he concluded. My regimen of antidepressants, painkillers, and pills to quell the side effects of other pills had become so complicated that no one seemed to know where my medical problems stopped and the pharmaceutical ones began. I could see the doctor’s point. “Quit being so paranoid about addiction,” he reassured me. “Your body will come to need this medicine, but you won’t turn into a drug vampire, constantly craving more and more.”

  And so I had agreed. It would take me a while to wean myself off the other medications and get used to the patch and the repulsive fentanyl “lollipops” that would stem any breakthrough pain, but I had plenty of time.

  After the hectic first round of doctor appointments, I noticed that while I wasn’t alone in my life, I was lonely. A few years back, another pain specialist had told me about a phenomenon he felt deserved some hard research. He had observed that a troubling emotional distance often develops between chronic pain sufferers and their friends and families. I didn’t know it, but what I was beginning to perceive as tightly restrained anger and frustration in conversations that were directed at me was a common emotional response. People like me, who struggled for extended periods from conditions that couldn’t be seen or given easily identifiable names, began to be cast in a different light over time.

  What was beginning to plague my relationships with family and friends—a curse that would baffle me for the next several years—could be best summed up by a comment most patients with chronic back pain are subjected to sooner or later: “Shouldn’t you be feeling better by now?” It’s a stigma never voiced to amputees, or to those who are wheelchair-bound, or to patients diagnosed with cancer—those ailments are obvious or have a recognizable diagnostic label. What does pain look like? And if it’s spinal pain, the tag assigned will most likely be medical mumbo jumbo not at all familiar to others. Degenerative disc disease. So what? We all get older. Postlaminectomy syndrome. Huh? Kyphoscoliosis and pseudoarthritis. Oh, come on! Ultimately, if there isn’t any available medical cure: Maybe it’s all in your head.

  The sufferer is then faced with an isolating conundrum. If I talk about my misery, I risk being viewed as a hypochondriac, a Debbie Downer who wreaks havoc on any normal social setting. On the other hand, if I hide my pain, I’m viewed either as a hopeless stoic who refuses help or someone who would have to be complaining if he were in that much pain. Current research not only validates these types of anecdotal observations, it also shows that this stigmatization actually magnifies the patient’s physical suffering. That shouldn’t be a big surprise. Depression and pain often use the same nerve pathways.

  At the time, though, all I was aware of was antipathy, somewhat vague but unmistakable nonetheless, which was focused at me. Family and friends were progressively absent from my life. Associates stopped returning my phone calls. Daughters didn’t come home for the weekend. Freddie started working later. Friends were always golfing or out of town. Nobody said it to my face, but I knew what they were thinking: You’re addicted to medication … You’ve let your body go to hell … You need to see some better doctors … You haven’t explored new treatments … You’re doing things that make it worse … You’re just not trying hard enough. Was I really that much of a miserable son of a bitch? Or was my distrust valid? It was easy to be paranoid when the only other thing I could think about was that I hurt like hell. Only Comet, Cody, and Sandoz seemed to enjoy my company.

  Those poor dogs! They became my full-time companions and psychologists. My health complaints were directed at three creatures who would much rather have been racing down the beach. They patiently listened, occasionally raising their eyebrows or cocking their heads as I muttered a nonstop inventory of past mistakes. Comet attended every one of my doctor consultations and ego-sucking tests. My handicapped Jet Ski was a river casino of wild thoughts about the future, captained by loyal Cody, who was now crawling to the dock almost as slowly as I was.

  It’s a shame that it had to be Cody who roused me from my self-absorption. At about 3:00 a.m. one morning I was awakened by a raspy, coughing choke coming from the floor. It had started a couple of weeks earlier with an occasional cough followed by a retching noise that made me think a fish bone was stuck in Cody’s throat. I couldn’t feel any foreign objects when I thrust my finger down the length of his tongue, nor could I detect any lumps from a physical exam of his throat. The vet wasn’t excited about subjecting a thirteen-year-old dog to x-rays. I bought a plastic syringe and began squirting cough medicine into his mouth before bedtime. Tonight, though, the sound had changed from retching to the wheeze of labored breathing.

  “It’s okay, buddy.” Cody was trying to get to his paws, but I gently lowered him to his bed. “What’s the matter?” The question was part of my rubbing investigation of his neck. I didn’t expect the answer I got: a round mass beneath the fur just below his throat.

  Cody was the g
entlest, most obedient dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He insisted on walking into the vet’s office that dawn, but he could no longer leap onto the exam table. He allowed me to help the vet lift him onto the stainless table without protest. He always trusted me. But on this occasion, Cody’s black eyes staring from beneath prominent raised eyebrows pleaded with me to take him out of there. The streaks down my cheeks told him I just couldn’t do that right now. I should have. A lump was clogging Cody’s airway, making it hard for him to swallow anything. It was as if the thyroid tumor diagnosis was what my longtime friend was trying to avoid. As long as Cody didn’t know how sick he was, he could go on forever. Once voice was given to the problem, it was as if the knowledge killed him. Cody was gone within the week.

  A few days after his passing, despite intense pain shooting down my legs into my toes, I floated on the lake long into the afternoon. I knew the pontoon boat’s batteries were nearly as exhausted as I was, but I still couldn’t perform this final task. It felt like it wasn’t just an end; it was the end. After a day spent blistering my nose and shoulders, I couldn’t find any answers, other than that I was lost. Saying good-bye shouldn’t have been on my summer itinerary. I dared anybody to tell me that life was fair—or worse, that this was just part of living. I couldn’t have hated being alive more. I dumped Cody’s ashes into the lake.

  All summer long, the normal colors of home seemed diminished, as if I were viewing them through a dingy filter. I was continually stalked by an old guy with a beard asking if he could harvest my oats with his scythe. Instead, he found Cody. I couldn’t get out of Nebraska fast enough.