Kapiolani Community College
Diamond Journal 2003Fall

Losing My Shadow
Joli Kenney

“Joli, Shadow has cancer.”

For the rest of my life, I will remember those words, spoken by my mother. Cancer. The word has an ominous feeling; dark, full of dread and despair. I was 14 years old when I heard those words, and I had no idea what they would come to mean to me, or the way they would shape my life.

My family and I returned to Hawaii in 1985, after living in Anchorage, Alaska. My family consists of my mother and father, my older brother Tommy, myself, my younger sister Nicky, our two dogs Shadow and Ambie, and our cockatiel Pokino.

Shadow was my dog. She was an adorable Basset Hound/Shetland Sheep Dog mix, and looked like a Basset Hound with short ears and short legs with knocked knees. Shadow had a rust-brown body and face, white feet, a white tip on her tail, a black triangle that ran down her back, and what looked like a black bat on her forehead above her eyes. Her smooth fur felt like the softest velvet. She also had the biggest, moistest brown eyes I have ever seen, eyes that would melt your heart.

The year before we returned to Hawaii, Shadow was born in a house behind my family’s house. My friend Kelly had adopted Shadow’s brother, and she thought I should look at the remaining puppies. It was love at first sight. As fast as I could, I ran to tell my parents about her. I begged and pleaded with them to let me have her, and I think I won out of pure persistence. Shadow became my best friend, going everywhere I went. I named her Shadow because she always followed right behind me.

Although both Ambie and Shadow had to be quarantined for 6 months to enter the Hawaiian Islands, I think it was especially hard on Shadow who was a six-month old puppy when we shipped her. She was away from her family and separated from Ambie, her surrogate mother. The quarantine officials would not allow the dogs to share a common cage, but did accommodate us by placing them in cages directly next to each other.

Shadow made my transition to the Islands bearable. I was the new kid at school. I dressed differently than the rest of the kids, and my hair had completely puffed into an afro from all the humidity. I was having a hard time adjusting to the new school, the new house, and the new friends. But Shadow, my faithful friend, was always there for me.

I was feeding Ambie and Shadow on a hot summer night when the specter of cancer loomed.

“Mom? Hey Mom? I think there is something wrong with Shadow.”

(Calling from within the house.) “Joli, what do you want?”

“Mom, I think there is something wrong with Shadow. I came out here to feed her and Ambie, but Shadow’s not eating her food.”

“Why do you sound so worried? Maybe she’s just not hungry.”

“Mom, I really don’t think that’s the problem. When have you ever known my dog to not eat food? Besides, I started to notice it a little last week. She starts to eat, then noses the food around in her bowl, and then Ambie just rushes in and gobbles everything up. It just doesn’t seem like her.”

“Well, if you noticed it last week, it can’t be that big of a problem, Jolie.”

“No, Mom, I really think she is getting worse. Before she would eat at least a little of her food, but now she doesn’t seem to want any of it. And there is something else. She looks like she is gaining weight. How can she gain weight if she doesn’t eat?”

“If you are that worried, we’ll make an appointment with the vet. We’ll get this checked out, okay?”

“Okay, Mom. Thanks.”

We called the veterinarian at the Hawaii Kai Veterinary Clinic. Like all clinics it had a reception desk located right inside the front door, a few old acrylic school chairs, an end table covered with magazines, and the odor of urine and cleaning chemicals hanging in the air. My mother and I checked in with the receptionist and then waited.

“Shadow Kenney?” called the receptionist.

“Yes, that would be us,” I replied.

“Right this way, please,” she said as she lead us down a small corridor and into one of the small examining rooms.

In the center of the room was a steel top examining table. The wall behind it was lined with a bunch of cupboards and a long counter top that held a bunch of glass canisters filled with cotton swabs, cotton balls, gauze patches, wooden tongue depressors, and a preserved heart filled with heartworms. The walls were a faded yellow color and had a cute picture of a puppy and kitten hung in the center of it. The florescent lights above the examining table cast a cold, austere light about the room, making you feel like you were about to be examined. I think Shadow felt this because she was shaking at the end of her leash. She always hated coming to the vet.

After a moment, the doctor came in and said, “Good afternoon. Why don’t we lift Shadow onto the table, and I’ll check her out. What seems to be the problem?”

I picked up Shadow like she was a lamb, one arm wrapped around her chest, the other around her rear, and hefted her onto the table. She weighed a good 40 lbs, but it wasn’t very difficult. Her paws slipped a little because her claws couldn’t grasp the smooth surface very well, and she finally just sat down with a woebegone look on her face.

“ She’s not eating her food. She hasn’t been eating a lot in the last couple of weeks, and I am a little worried,” I said while I stroked
Shadow’s ears trying to ease her anxiousness.

“ We’ll start off with the normal exam and see if we find anything,” the doctor replied. He took her temperature, listened to her heartbeat with a stethoscope, took a fecal sample, and then palpatated her abdomen. “There does seem to be some tension here in her abdomen; it is pretty solid, like a football,” he said. “Has she gotten into anything she shouldn’t have? Eaten anything unusual?”

“ No, not that I know of,” I responded, “I haven’t seen her eat anything lately.”

“ I think we should take some x-rays and see what we can find.”

They took Shadow into the back of the clinic to take the x-rays while my mother and I waited in the examining room. I was starting to get nervous. There was nothing wrong with either her temperature or fecal sample. I started to think that maybe if I had spent more time with her lately this wouldn’t have happened. I would have noticed something was wrong sooner. I felt guilty for spending time with my human friends and not my dog.

The doctor finally returned, “The x-rays will be done in about an hour. Why don’t you folks go on home, and I’ll give you a call later to let you know what we find. I wouldn’t worry too much. She probably just ate something she shouldn’t have, and this is a pretty easy procedure. We will just have to wait and see.”

My mother and I took Shadow home to wait for the doctor’s phone call. It finally came later that afternoon, but it wasn’t very insightful. The x-rays didn’t reveal much, and the doctor suggested we take Shadow to C.A.R.E. Animal Hospital, located near Kapahulu Avenue and Wailalae Avenue. He said that they specialized in x-rays and surgery. My mother called and made the appointment.

My parents accompanied Shadow and myself to C.A.R.E. to lend support. We arrived at the flat, white, one-story building and pulled the old green Ford Fairmont around to the parking lot at the back of the building. As we walked across the lot to the rear entrance of the building, the gravel crunched under our feet. Taking Shadow by her leash, I led her down the bright white hallway to the reception desk in the front to check in. The waiting room was salmon pink and filled with old, seventies looking, vinyl covered square-back chairs. The chairs that lined the walls were separated here and there by end tables displaying an array of magazines. At my feet, Shadow lay panting heavily, the way she always does when she is nervous. Her large brown eyes flitted from one thing to another, showing her distress at being in another vet clinic.

Finally, we were called in by the receptionist and led back down the white hallway to an examining room. My father decided to remain in the waiting area; he doesn’t like blood. This room was a little larger than the one at the Hawaii Kai Clinic, but painted a light muted green color. It had the same fluorescent lighting and type of examining table in the center of the floor. On the counter tops were the same glass canisters with the cotton balls and swabs; it even had another heartworm heart.

As the doctor entered the room, she bent down and let Shadow smell her hand, saying, “So, what is the matter with Shadow?” A small Asian woman in her early thirties, she had a kind smile and pleasant voice.

“ We took her to the vet in Hawaii Kai and he sent us to see you,” my mother said. “Shadow has been off her food lately, but she has been gaining weight, and we are starting to get a little worried. The vet took some x-rays, but he said he really couldn’t tell what the problem was. He thought maybe you could help.”

“ Why don’t we start by examining her. She looks like an unusual breed. What is she?”

I spoke up and said, “She’s a Basset/Sheltie mix.”

“ She is a pretty dog. Let’s see if we can find out what is going on.”

The doctor and her assistant helped to lift Shadow onto the cold steel top of the examining table, the top of which was a scale. They quickly took her weight, temperature, heart rate, and conducted a thorough examination. “By looking at her chart from the other hospital, she hasn’t gained a lot of weight, but it does seem like there is something in there. I would like to do surgery and take some more x-rays to be certain, though. The only problem is, it could be expensive.”

My mom spoke up, “How expensive?”

“I am not quite sure, but, if we do the x-rays, it will be a couple hundred. If we do the surgery, it could be around a thousand. It also depends on what we find.”

My mother turned to me with her blue eyes and said, “We should get your father in here; he’ll have to make this decision.”

When my father joined us, his tall wiry frame made me feel a little more confident. I knew my parents loved my dog almost as much as I did. I knew they would help me any way they could. After they informed my father of the situation and the cost of the x-rays and surgies, he turned his serious brown eyes toward me.

“ Joli, you know your mother and I care about Shadow too, right?”

“Yeah, Dad, I know.”

“Well, we aren’t talking about a small amount of money here, but this is your dog. What do you want to do?”

I was stressed out, but I was relieved to have a voice in the decision. I couldn’t help but get choked up with tears. I always did when my father talked to me about something serious. It wasn’t the sternness of his voice. For a man who doesn’t show his emotions, he always shows he cares. The fact that he was even thinking of spending that kind of money on my dog meant the world to me. Money had been tight for us since the move back to Hawaii, and I knew we didn’t have much to throw around.

“Joli, if you want, if you think this is what you want, we will do the surgery. Does it mean that much to you?” he asked, concern filling his deep brown eyes.

Looking into his brown face, I cried softly, “Yeah, Dad, it does.”

Taking control of the situation, as he always does, my father worked it out with the lady vet. We would leave Shadow at the hospital, and she would go through the surgery the following day. I don’t know how he came up with the money, but my father made it happen.
The following afternoon, the phone call came. They had completed Shadow’s surgery,and had found cancer. It was a large tumor, about the size of a large grapefruit. The tumor had been attached to her kidney, and as it grew, it filled her abdomen, making eating very difficult. They had carefully removed the mass, and even sent a piece of it out to a lab to be examined. Because the mass had been so large, they weren’t sure if it had spread to any of her other organs. We would just have to wait and see.

When I got Shadow back from the hospital, she was very thin. The surgery left her with a shaved tummy and a long incision down the center of her stomach, but she started to eat. Thank God she started to eat. In the following weeks she started to gain the weight she had lost before her surgery. In no time, she was the same happy puppy she had been before. I was so happy to see her running in front of me, her back legs always trying to catch up to her front ones, running almost sideways as most hounds do. I was transported from the stress of her illness to the elation of her recovery.

I took Shadow on long walks around our neighborhood, and even up to Kamiloiki Elementary School’s playground. We would lie on the lawn of the school and watch the clouds go by. I would sit in the backyard for hours, brushing both Ambie and Shadow, making up for all the times I felt I had neglected them. I was so happy to have my friend back.

Then, it started all over again. Shadow stopped eating her food. Her cancer was malignant. Her tumor was returning. I couldn’t believe what was going on. My dog was going to die. The cancer was growing faster this time, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. My parents had spent so much money, only to have this happen. We couldn’t afford to have another surgery, and I didn’t have that kind of money. I didn’t know what to do.

I was going to lose my best friend. It was the hardest thing I had to face. Then my parents asked me if I wanted her to pass away naturally be put to sleep. I didn’t know what to do. Could I actually tell someone to kill my best friend?

I spent the next couple of weeks in a deep depression. I kept trying to convince myself this wasn’t happening. I spent my days sitting in the back yard with Shadow by my side. I was wallowing in self-pity and grief. I sat with tears running down my face, the sadness tearing a hole in my heart. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to look out the kitchen window and not see my friend’s eyes return my gaze.

And then it hit me.

I was being selfish. Shadow would end up dying in pain if I let her illness continue. She was losing weight every day, and her tumor was making eating very difficult. Not once did Shadow’s attitude change. She was still my faithful friend; it was my turn to be hers. I wiped the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my t-shirt, and took Shadow down to the canal.

The canal was a secret place I took Shadow when I wanted to get away. Watching the sun light dance on the water, each ripple bringing a brilliance of light to life, we sat at the end of a ramp where boats could be lowered into the canal. The water itself was dirty, but from where we sat on the cold ripples of concrete, it was beautiful. As we watched a family of Mallard ducks swim along the other side of the canal, I stroked Shadow’s ears and muzzle. Caressing her fur, the softest I have ever touched, I felt my heart breaking. Even though she was a dog, she was my best friend. I decided to put her to sleep. I kept telling myself it was the best decision. Shadow wouldn’t suffer. If I didn’t do this, she would die a very unhappy dog.

Shadow always seemed to know how I was feeling. She sat there with me, leaning close to my side. She looked up to my face, and then licked my hand. Her gentleness let me know I was making the right decision, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

I finished crying, gathered her leash, and returned home. I put Shadow in the backyard and looked for my mother. I found her in the kitchen, rinsing some food for dinner. When she heard me enter the room, she turned to me and quickly recognized I had been crying. With a worried look on her face, she said, “Joli, are you okay?”

“Yeah Mom, I am.”

“Have you been crying?”

“Yeah, I was down by the canal with Shadow. And I was thinking about what to do.”

“Have you come up with anything yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you want to tell me?”

I could feel my tears returning, but I gathered my strength to say the words. “I have decided to put her to sleep. But I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure, Honey, what?”

“I want to be there. I want to be there when it happens, Mom. I have always been with her, and I don’t want a stranger to be the last one she sees before she dies.”

“I don’t know if they will let you, Joli. Why don’t we call and find out?”

We called the vet, and he said although they normally don’t, they would allow me to be there with Shadow when she fell asleep. He also said whenever I was ready we could just drive down and they would take care of us. I wanted to wait a week. I wanted to make enough memories to last a lifetime. My father even gave me a few rolls of film to take pictures of Shadow and myself.

The day arrived, and before my father left for work, he said, “Joli, I am proud of you. You have made a difficult decision, but I know it is the right one.” My father’s words meant a lot to me. Knowing he respected my decision and recognized how difficult it was for me gave me the strength to do what I had to.

My mother and I got Shadow from the backyard and headed to the vet clinic. Once we were there, I led Shadow into the waiting room, holding her red, nylon leash. They immediately led me into one of the exam rooms and placed Shadow on that cold, steel exam table.

The doctor said, “If you would like, we can give you a few minutes. I’ll just be outside. Let me know when you are ready.”

I was in a daze, but as he was getting ready to leave the room, I asked, “Will it hurt?”

“No. It won’t. We will just give her a shot, and she will slip away into sleep. She won’t feel a thing.” And he left the room.

I stood there for quite sometime. I told Shadow how much I loved her and would miss her. Tears started falling once the doctor left the room. Shadow, sensing my sadness, licked my cheek with her warm pink tongue. I hugged her and stroked her soft ears. Finally I called to the doctor that I was ready.

He entered the room and walked to the counter where the bottle of anesthesia and syringe lay. He picked them up and returned to the table. As he filled the syringe with the deadly liquid, he said, “Don’t worry, Shadow, everything is okay.” The doctor had me walk around the table and wrap my arms around Shadow. I was to hold her so he could slip that cold needle into her vein.

As I held her, I whispered, “Shadow, everything is going to be okay, you won’t feel anything. You’ll be all right . . .” I kept repeating those words over and over, as much for myself as for Shadow. My cheeks were wet with tears I could not hold back.

As I stroked her ears and hugged her to me, I could feel Shadow’s body start to sink onto the table. Her feet slid across the cold steel table till she lay there in my arms. Her eyes began to droop, her breathing began to slow down, and her body started to relax. Then her breathing stopped, and she just seemed to slip away. My friend fell asleep forever.

I stood there in a daze. I couldn’t believe Shadow was gone. Tears continued to run down my face. I vaguely remembered the doctor saying I could take all the time I needed. I stared at her body for what seemed like forever. Finally, I reached out, stroked her ears for the last time, removed her faded, red, nylon collar and left the room.

In the waiting room, my mother gathered me into her arms and held me tight. Sobs shook my body violently. My mother whispered, “Joli, everything will be okay. I know you may not think so now, but you did the right thing. “ A few minutes later, we left the clinic for home.

Shadow went to sleep almost 15 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I will forever be grateful to my faithful friend for making my transition to Hawaii easier. The support I had from my parents is typical of the love they have always shown for me. I am still grateful for the sacrifices they made for my friend.

I still miss Shadow, but I know I made the right choice. I would do it again today. Now, I encourage people to make sure they are present when their friend falls asleep. It is hard, it is sad, but it is the last nice thing you can do for your beloved pet. I will always be there for my own pets should I have to make that decision again.