Angel on a Leash (17 page)

When Cheri was at NewYork-Presbyterian, she came to know a patient on the bone marrow transplant unit (BMT). The patient, Julie, was a wonderful woman whose body had already rejected two transplants, and she was not doing well.

She missed her own dog, had a history of working with dogs in need, and had some involvement in the dog show world with her own dog, an English Foxhound. She was able to convince her health care team to allow Teigh and Belle to visit her, something that had never been allowed before on the BMT at NewYork-Presbyterian. She had also asked that Cheri bring me along to talk about dogs and Westminster.

The rooms on the BMT are set up to keep out any possible pathogens—double doors, negative airflow, scrub sinks, and other precautionary measures. Visitors have to scrub in at a sink between the two doors and put on masks, gowns, and gloves before they enter.

We do all of those things ourselves and put a little hand sanitizer on the bottom of the dog's feet as another precaution; the patient puts on a gown, mask, and gloves for the visit from the dog. When we go in to see the patient, we put the dog in a chair next to the bed, where the patient can interact by petting or just looking at the dog.

The masks can't hide the patients' smiles.

We didn't know Julie long, but we quickly realized that she was quite special. We learned from her husband, Tim, that she had a successful career in the music industry and then created a company that helped transition traumatic brain-injury patients in New York City back into their communities and jobs.

We learned about Julie's beloved English Foxhound, Anna, who inspired Julie to extend her grace and caring into the animal world. While Julie did a lot for Anna, it was what Anna did for her that motivated Julie to spend her spare time in New York finding homes for homeless dogs and to buy bags of food to feed stray dogs wherever she traveled on vacation.

We had some wonderful visits with Julie before she passed. She would have been pleased to learn that Teigh and Belle also attended her church memorial service at St. Anthony's in New York. Their rattling dog tags got everyone to turn around and smile as they walked in.

Julie's legacy was opening doors everywhere for society's marginalized people and dogs. We knew that there were going to be lots of friends—four-legged and two-legged—waiting in Heaven to greet her. We were blessed to have had Julie touch our lives, no matter how briefly. She really does live on in all of us.

Kathleen was another BMT patient. She asked Cheri to bring Teigh and Belle to her, and the doctors approved. Cheri brought me along on the visits a number of times.

After Kathleen passed, the family asked that we bring the dogs to the memorial service, and we did. After the service, we went downstairs to the reception with the dogs and promptly drew a crowd.

“Is this Teigh and Belle?” one of Kathleen's friends asked. “Having the dogs visit meant so much to her.”

“We were glad that we could help bring her some peace at the end,” Cheri answered.

Another woman joined the group. “She loved the dogs,” she said, “but I have to tell you this story. I came to visit Kathleen one day, and I go through the first door and stop to ‘scrub in.' I wash up, I put on booties, a gown, gloves, a mask, and a hat, ready to visit. I back through the door, careful not to touch anything, and I turn around to see her and … THERE'S A DOG IN THE ROOM!”

We all laughed, understanding how someone could be surprised by that.

“She loved these dogs,” the woman said, through tears. “Thanks for bringing them to her, and thanks for bringing them here today so we could thank them ourselves.”

Teigh and I were part of a video shoot at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital one day, and afterward we visited a few patients. One of them was a young boy named Adam—a bright, worldly little guy. Cheri has often told me that her pediatric patients are wise old souls for all that they have been through, and that indeed was Adam.

I put Teigh into Adam's bed, laying him along Adam's side. His mom was telling me Adam's story.

“He's had seventeen surgeries in two years,” she said, almost in a daze.

“I'm a brave little boy,” Adam said.

No kidding, Adam. We should all have your courage.

One of the things that I do that has had the most impact on me in recent years began with having nothing to do with dogs … well,
almost
nothing (as if anything in my life can have nothing to do with dogs!).

My friend Linda Woo called me in Seattle in 2000 and asked if I would do her a favor. She was going to receive an honor from Transfiguration Church and School in Manhattan's Chinatown, and she wanted me to come to New York City and serve as the master of ceremonies at their fund-raising dinner-dance.

I accepted the invitation, of course. Linda has been a wonderful friend through the years. I met her through my friend Wayne Ferguson. She told me that the event was to be held at a restaurant in Chinatown, where Transfiguration has been an active Catholic community since 1801. They added a free school for immigrant children in 1832, and it has been serving Lower Manhattan ever since. In fact, Linda graduated from the school, became Miss Chinatown, and has been an active supporter of their Transfiguration Education Association (TEA) ever since.

While the school served the neighborhood's German and Italian immigrant residents for many years, today it is in the heart of what has become Chinatown, and most of the students are of Chinese heritage. The school has been filled to its 260-student capacity with an active waiting list for the past twenty-five years. It features a challenging curriculum that comes from the state and from the Archdiocese of New York.

It is, as I have come to know and appreciate, a very special place. The man who makes it all happen is Father Ray Nobiletti, pastor of the church and overseer of the school. Dr. Patrick Taharally is principal of Transfiguration School, and Emily Eng-Tran is principal of the Kindergarten School. I am constantly impressed with their work and their wonderful students. They have all become special friends, and Father Ray, the heart and soul of it all, has become a mentor for Cherilyn, too.

The dinner-dance event is held in a huge restaurant with nearly 1,000 guests in attendance. I have to admit that when Linda first described it to me as a dinner at a restaurant, I figured that there would be a couple of hundred people—but nothing like this.

At this annual event, the TEA has honored people and companies who have contributed to the school, to the community, and to the revitalization of Lower Manhattan (Transfiguration is only a few blocks from Ground Zero). Among those who have been recognized through the years are State Supreme Court Justice Michael Corriero, John Cardinal O'Connor, journalist Pete Hamill, actor Robert DeNiro, photographer Corky Lee, businessman Ben Glascoe, businesswoman Amy Mak Chan, educator Regina Mah-Yee, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, educator Dr. Nancy Eng, educators A.B. Whitfield and Janey Whitney, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

I was humbled to be one of the 2006 TEA honorees. My award was artwork done by one of the students, inscribed as follows:

David Frei
Humanitarian, Communications, and
Broadcast Professional
Honoring his loyal support of
Transfiguration Schools
and his dedication to philanthropic causes

In the past, we had taken Teigh and Belle to the Transfiguration kindergarten, where they were big hits. The TEA probably should have honored the dogs instead of me, because they generated more smiles and excitement than you could imagine.

Teigh and Belle captivated the kids. Judging from their questions and the way they acted around the dogs, I guessed that not many of the kids lived in households with their own dogs, so meeting and interacting with Teigh and Belle was a new experience for most of them. Teigh and Belle ate it up, of course, holding court, accepting pets and hugs, and performing a few tricks as Cheri and I talked about dogs in our lives and responsible dog ownership.

The kids at Transfiguration are wonderfully unrelenting and talented. My guess is that they learn these qualities and hone their talents at this great school, which is why they consistently perform above grade level in standardized state tests.

I am so blessed to have Transfiguration and people like Father Ray in my life.

In a lot of things that I do in the media and in public, it's important for me to know my audience. That's important for handlers in therapy dog work, too, especially for the safety of the dogs.

After her residency at NewYork-Presbyterian, Cheri was offered the position of director of the Department of Spiritual Care at Terence Cardinal Cooke (TCC) Health Care Center, a big hospital on Fifth Avenue near the north end of Central Park in East Harlem.

TCC is a 700-bed hospital that has a number of special-care units, and two of them require our full attention when visiting: the Huntington's disease and AIDS units.

Huntington's disease is a genetic neurodegenerative brain disease that presents with sudden mood swings, irritability, and fits of anger, along with
chorea,
which is a term for sudden or jerky movements. The Hunting-ton's unit at TCC is the best of its kind in the country. The patients there loved the dogs, but the challenge was always to protect the dogs from anything that comes with the symptoms of the disease. Often, we would have to gently encourage patients to loosen their grips on Teigh or Belle, who were remarkably tolerant and did a lot of good on their visits to this unit.

We had begun our therapy dog career visiting at an AIDS hospice in Seattle, so I thought I knew what to expect in TCC's long-term care unit. What was new to me as a volunteer and also to Cheri was the fact that a number of these patients had been violent criminals and aggressive street people. It was difficult and not particularly wise for Cheri to visit on her own, and she usually took Ron, a 350-pound Detroit-cop-turned-Catholic-priest with her. Occasionally, I would go with her. One night I got the question, “Hey, where's the big guy?” I answered, “I'm the biggest guy you're going to get today.”