Born to Bark by Stanley Coren Page B

from him since before my initial diagnosis.
    “Good news. Very good news! Your tests look wonderful. The team in Toronto wants you to continue the treatment for another six weeks, just to be sure, but it is beginning to look as if the infection has stopped spreading completely, and its severity has been brought down to a level where your own immune system can mop up what remains. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side they want those extra few weeks of treatment.”

    Then he smiled again. “Well, you took a gamble and you won a life!”
    He gave me a pat on my shoulder as I walked out of his office. I felt like this should be a musical moment, and I should run through the clinic singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” while a camera circled around me and a troupe of dancers appeared from all sides twirling in their sparkling costumes and holding their arms high while they sang along with me. I restrained myself from any sort of display until I was sitting in my car alone, where I clenched both of my fists, looked up, and threw my hands forward and shouted loudly enough for God to hear, “Yes! Thank you, Boss!”

    Suddenly I had plans to make, and a life—a real life, hopefully, even a long life—to map out. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, about how happy I was, that I had beaten the odds and had been given a second chance. But I couldn’t, because I had not told anybody about my illness. I didn’t even have a dog in my life to share my joy. I glanced at my wristwatch. I had a class to teach in an hour, so I couldn’t revel in the moment in any case.
    As I drove toward campus, my mind was whirling. I had started no new projects and had avoided even close friends for nearly a year. I really did not know how I was going to restart a life that I had been carefully closing down ever since my death sentence had been announced. Should I try to do something toreestablish my family, perhaps fight for custody or at least more access to my kids? Should I consider some of the tentative job offers that I had been receiving and perhaps move to Philadelphia or to another university and start my life over again in a new place? Should I …
    The endless possibilities that were open to me and the decisions that I needed to make were still racing around in my mind when I parked my car and started to walk toward the psychology building to gather up the material that I needed for my lecture. As I neared my office, I heard a voice call out, “Stan!”
    I turned and saw the familiar face of Lou, a member of the education faculty who had been on several committees with me, and whose husband, Arnold, I knew from a boxing club that I occasionally used to work out in to try to maintain some semblance of physical fitness before my illness. We had all been together at a couple of social events, and I liked Lou’s friendly, open manner, and the blue of her eyes reminded me of the color of my daughter Rebecca’s eyes.
    “Stan, if you’ve got a minute, I need some information. I know that you had a dog and I wonder if you know of any good boarding kennels where a dog can get some extra care. My husband and I have to go home—back east—to take care of a family matter. It’s all very short notice since we have to leave the day after tomorrow, and we’ll be gone around six to maybe eight days. The problem is that our dog, Wolf—a golden retriever—has a medical problem and needs a shot every morning and evening. Most kennels don’t do that for you, and if we leave him at the vet’s it will not only be expensive, but he will basically be confined to a kennel crate for the whole time, since my vet doesn’t normally do boarding. We thought of getting a house sitter, but none of them is willing to give Wolf his injections.”
    I stopped dead. What was happening here? I thought of a quote from the nineteenth-century French poet, philosopher,and revolutionary politician Alphonse de Lamartine, who said, “When man is in trouble, God sends