Family Rescue!

by Tiffany Verock
(Washington CH OH USA)

In August of 2009 I was diagnosed with brain cancer that was nested in swollen brain tissue which meant it was inoperable. If the cancer was to be operated on besides a simple biopsy, it would cause instant brain damage. The man I was living with and engaged to could not handle the situation involving Radiation, Chemotherapy and quite a lot of medication along with the side effects of all. Two weeks after my diagnosis, I was put out of the apartment we were sharing and ended up at my parent's house.

My parents now have 4 rescues of their own, all rescued in different ways. Sassy, the Jack Russell, obviously considers herself the Queen because she was the first in their house. Sassy was saved from a breeder. She was the last female left in the most recent litter and they knew she would be kept to be bred over and over until she was no more useful.

Chopper, a German Shepherd/Rottweiler is the Alpha male who definitely knows how to defend his home but also as anyone will say, he is the biggest baby when he gets to know you. He is full grown and still cannot seem to understand that he is no longer a lap dog unless the person is on the floor with him or on a full bed. He was saved from being passed around over and over and kept long enough for people to be told how big he will get. When they got him, he was the size of Queen Sassy and as he grew, she was acting as if she could not quite figure out what he was being fed and why she was not getting any of the "make me bigger" food!

Two summers ago, my dad built an English garden with a waterfall and a double tier koi pond for my mom for her birthday in May. Their house is surrounded by many fields and mom and dad used one of dad's cushmans to haul the large stones from a place where the farmers dump them after they are unearthed from the fields. They were coming back to the house with their last load for the day, talking about what they were going to have for dinner and suddenly dad stopped the cushman and jumped out. He had seen a small fuzz ball in the weeds in the ditch about 100 ft. from their driveway. As he stood and turned, mom saw the cutest fully black fuzzy curly little thing! Her name is Maddie and she is considered a hippie reincarnated! When mom and dad go to bed and all the dogs are on their beds in the bedroom, Maddie has to make her rounds and give everyone nite-nite kisses! She's such a lover! She's the last to bark, if she does. She's such a little relaxing sweetheart! If you are gonna lay down, she is the first to be on the bed waiting for you!

The final rescue in their house is daddy's baby, Rufus. There are very few people who would go through what my parents went through to get him adjusted to be with nice people. They found him when they were going to check out a car from Craigslist and Rufus belonged to the neighbor. When mom and dad walked to the back of the house to see the car, they saw a Border Collie chained to a poor excuse for a dog shack (not dog house) The chain was a 2 ft long logging chain. There was no food bowl, nor a water bowl. There was a pile of potato peels and apple cores topped with bread crust, all surrounded by flies. All of this was all surrounding not any Border Collie, but a PUPPY! The man came out of the house while mom and dad were there and came to the neighbors and long story short, the man offered the dog to them. It took nothing for them to say yes and take the poor puppy home with them. It wasn't long after they found Maddie that they got Rufus. He is still very touchy in some situations and as I've said, not many would go through what my parents have dealt with. Unfortunately, some would pass him on and on and on and leave him to the point of feeling even worse than when he was a puppy but they have done what they could and beyond.

And that leads me to my own fuzzy baby. Along with my cancer, I have also been diagnosed with epilepsy. It's been very difficult to deal with the combination of both problems plus the medications that go together well or will kind of give me trouble. I stayed with my parents for quite awhile counting days between MRIs, EEGs, CAT scans etc. waiting to get a set of good results or at least decent enough to be able to once again get out on my own! Once I was given release through the oncologists, radiologists and my neurologists to be out again, I thought it would be great. Of course the first thing I really missed was my parents. Not to mention being very confused when I would wake up in the middle of the night! Then my depression got worse but I didn't quite understand why. And then through the social worker at the cancer center and talking to my mom, it was figured out. I was alone. Not just being away from my parents after being there so long, but no longer having a little fuzzy face with me all the time. Sassy had basically adopted me and she was my little buddy. Every night she slept in the bed with me while the other 3 were in mom and dads room. (She may have been the first there, but the other 3 are so much bigger than her, she still has to go out of her way to get attention!)

Mom and dad had gone to Columbus on a Saturday to visit some friends of theirs for one of their birthdays. I had slept in and didn't think about it until around 9, but I called mom to see if they would bring Sassy to me to spend the day here while they were out of town. Unfortunately, they were already on their way to Columbus. Apparently their conversation after mom and I hung up was mostly about finding me a companion. After picking up Bob and Bobblin for brunch and talking to them about it, they found out the Alum Creek Drive Pet Rescue Center was having a weekend adoption festival. I got a call back from mom awhile after I had talked to her and it turned into her repeating over and over forms of "you have to come to Columbus with us tomorrow" and "will you please come with us tomorrow if we take you to lunch?" and all of that. Telling me where they were, they had to do nothing other than take me to the Pet Center!

Of course they had went from cage to cage saying "she might like...." and such but when they approached a certain cage, he said to mom "Cage 401. Oscar. Write it down." They put a hold on him and the next morning, we were on our way to Alum Creek. The place was FULL of people. We waited and waited. I filled out the paperwork so I could "meet" him. We waited and waited. We were taken to one of the outside meeting cages. The back door opened. And I saw my dog. He came straight to me and I was covered in kisses. I sat on the concrete and we played and "talked" and loved.

Thanks to my parents, there were 2 rescues that day. My Oscar and me.


Editor's note: Wow, Tiffany - you and your family are amazing! Thanks so much for sending in your story and photos... Jo