Meeting Persephone

The responsibility of healing is something I have never taken lightly. I have been able to perform this gift in ways that have been surprising and beneficial to the recipients. As is typical of healers, I'm unable to do the same for myself and for some reason my body is resistant to healing. The easiest "patient" of mine is my husband because after years of experience and proof he has complete faith in my ability to help and that is the essential ingredient - the belief the person helping you can heal you. My daughter is not as receptive and so each attempt at healing her takes a much longer time with slower results.

Healing an animal is different than healing a human being. The main difference is the fact that an animal cannot express confidence in a person's ability to help. Animals also do not invest themselves in the process of healing because theirs is an immediate response - if treatment hurts, they want nothing to do with it. Human beings understand that at times treatment can cause a bit of discomfort but that the outcome of treatment means an end to illness. Animals do not have that awareness. It is also believed by some that animals do not have an understanding that death is imminent for all. In other words, they do not comprehend that one day they will no longer exist in this form. Therefore they do not have the capacity to succomb to the difficulties of healing with an understanding that it will lead to the overall better quality of life if successful. But in the end a sick animal wants either not to feel anymore or to feel better and hopefully they are invested and trust enough in their people to help them in one way or another. That is the thing that a healer working with animals must focus on, the animal's pure sense of how they feel.

This is a frustrating experience as a healer as well as a parent to an ailing animal. I'd written an earlier post about my cat, Rory. She'd been hiding out, not eating, not using her litter boxes, and had been even less friendly than usual. Because we'd seen so little of her we were completely unaware of a wound that had developed on her left rear hip as well as the large amount of weight she'd lost. We knew something was not quite right with her but having absolutely no contact with her by her choice, it was impossible to know how far things had gone. Fortunately, Rory has decided to start coming out more. Initially she was doing it for the sake of trying to get out of the house - she is strictly indoors all of the time. In fact, over this weekend she actually made it out to the front yard, sneaking past Mini Me as she was coming inside. My husband saw her out on the porch and went out to bring her back in with no objection from her. We began wondering if it was her intention to go off and die. This is not an idea we're willing to entertain any further than that. We can help her and that's exactly what we have set out to do. Dying is not an option as long as we have not exhausted all of our capabilities to aid her in healing.

The first thing we have done is to capitalize on her recent affection for Mini Me. After hiding out for so long she is desperate for comfort and Mini Me is patient and gentle with her and despite the fact that I'm here all day, it's Mini Me she wants to be with and doesn't really make herself visible until my daughter comes home. This connection has enabled us to evaluate the situation as well as work on treating her while Mini Me keeps her distracted and comfortable by soothing and bribing with Rory's "candy" (aka tuna). We keep Mini Me far away from the treatment area so that she's always a positive point for Rory. Now she's getting nourishment and love which are two essential ingredients in the process.

Next we are applying hot moist compresses to the wound to stimulate circulation as well as provide pain relief and to soften the area after having been dry and painful for a period of time we can't be certain of. With the aid of tuna, she is actually very receptive to this process and its benefit could be seen immediately just by watching her movement. Compresses also encourage healing through blood flowing to the area. I should note that the wound is open and seeping so great care must be taken, but it's also a good thing that it's open as it allows infection to be drawn out of her system. If it hadn't been open an abcess would have formed and that would have to have been opened which I dreaded so this is a decidedly better situation - at least in that regard.

After the compresses we used a hydrogen peroxide solution (5:1) to cleanse the wound the first time. After the initial cleansing we will use sterile saline solution for future cleaning of the wound because peroxide can be damaging to healthy tissue. By the time we got to this step Rory was getting fed up - understandably - and bolted. But a great deal was accomplished just in these few things even though there is one more thing we need to get done - a triple antibiotic ointment. We let her roam around for about an hour, grateful that she was moving at all instead of heading straight under the sofa, and then Mini Me and my husband place a "comfy cone" around her neck to prevent her from biting or licking at the wound. She doesn't love the cone but it serves such an important purpose that she'll just have to learn to live with it for awhile. The important thing was to make sure she was at least comfortable with it so she didn't use up energy/calories trying to remove it. She is settling into it reasonably well after about 12 hours.

This is as much an emotional process as a physical process. The reality of her situation was a lot to bear as it seemed so sudden. It wasn't sudden, but her hiding out made it impossible to witness the decline and so it did seem like it had happened all at once. While performing the initial cleansing process I had to suck it up and get it done despite the panic and sadness I was feeling that she is going through all of this. Afterward the reality hit me and I got choked up. I think it was a combination of sadness at what she's going through (and the memory of our Great Dane's difficult demise) and the desperate hope that she can be helped.

Ideally, once Rory settles down and starts feeling better about this process (assuming she does start feeling better about it), we will be able to perform this treatment 3 times per day. The benefits were visible immediately after this initial treatment. She was walking around, jumping onto furniture (which she hadn't done in quite some time), and was eventually over the anger about the peroxide solution and back requesting some affection, rewarding us with purring. Those small positives are something you cling to in these situations. When I woke up this morning and went into the bathroom I was thinking to myself that when she comes back through the door of the bathroom when one of us is in there, I'll know that we're on the right track. Well, about 40 minutes later, Mini Me woke up, went to the bathroom, and Rory pushed the door open to go see her. I was laughing and teary-eyed. Mini Me was too because she understood just what a step this was. Something seemingly so small that once was a silly quirk of the kitty's was now a sign of hope in this frightening ordeal.

After losing our Great Dane to a year long battle with cancer, we learned a great deal about the psychological aspect of illness in animals and have applied a lot of the understanding to dealing with Rory's situation. 'Moon', our Dane, was on prednisone therapy and put on a large amount of weight in that year. We know now that the therapy was more for us than for her despite the fact that it helped her at least feel better. It gave us time to come to terms with the inevitability of her situation and while a year is a very long time to adapt to the reality, that is what it took. Moon hated those pills initially, spat them out at every dose, but eventually realized that they were the contributing factor in making her feel a bit better and so came the resignation and there was no more fighting to get her to take her pills. In fact, she knew the routine so well that she would come to us in the morning for her medication. That is what I also anticipate with Rory. She isn't loving what we are doing right now but I believe that she will eventually realize that she is feeling better after each treatment and will at least become resigned and let us treat her. Fortunately her situation isn't the same as Moon's and the outcome will hopefully be much better.

So here's to hoping my beautiful baby gets back to normal through this long arduous process.