Change Brought Good Opportunity

It’s hard to know why things happen.

We like to think we’re in control. Actually, that’s only half true.

People pass through our lives, and change us. Random events change us.

What if your family hadn’t moved you across the country when you were 12? What if you hadn’t enrolled in that psychology class, the one in which you met your future spouse? What if that near miss had been an actual crash?

Where would you be now?

Somewhere different. Doing something different.

Just like Cathy Shuman.

Cancer changed Shuman’s life - but not how you’d expect. Eleven years ago, the Valley woman was a young mother of three. Her eldest, 5-year-old Aaron, had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Shuman was about to enter a three-year nightmare, filled with treatments and transplants and uncertainty.

And sad, lonely hospital rooms.

“I would’ve given my right arm for someone to talk to,” she remembers.

At first, Shuman dreamed of the day when she and Aaron could leave Deaconess Medical Center and never go back. But over time, she began thinking about the other mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, who were feeling as lonely and isolated as she was.

Her dream changed. She found herself signing up as a hospital volunteer.

It might have ended there, if not for a chance conversation. And a dog named Joy Belle.

Officials at Deaconess wanted to start up a pet therapy program - one that brought well-trained dogs into the hospital to cheer up patients.

“I had never trained a dog. I didn’t have a clue,” Shuman said. “But, we had this new puppy…”

Joy Belle, Shuman’s yellow lab, turned out to be ideal for the program. She was gentle and intuitive. She loved kids and didn’t get angry when they poked and pulled her, and loved her too much. She learned tricks to entertain them.

Soon, Shuman was taking Joy Belle to several area hospitals, as well as nursing homes, schools and group homes for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

After a few years, she decided to bring a second dog into her home, a small black Schipperke who could be added to her pet therapy team.

She found Cubby, then a 4-pound fluff ball.

“He’s a sturdy little guy,” Shuman said.“I got him at nine weeks and at 10 weeks he was in the nursing home.

“He loves to ride on wheelchairs.”

While Joy Belle loved children, Cubby preferred the elderly. Shuman now had a perfect team, one that could help an 80-year-old cancer patient forget her pain. Or, pull a smile from a 12-year-old boy who had just lost both of his legs.

In the beginning, Shuman was one of just a handful of local dog owners involved in pet therapy. Hoping to get more people involved, she began holding workshops on pet therapy at the Spokane Dog Training Club.

She now helps handlers train their dogs for the work, answering their questions and talking about their fears. She accompanies them on their first visits, until they feel comfortable working on their own.

“Often, the animal can handle it, but the owner can’t,” Shuman said.

“We’ve done visits with kids we knew were going to live only another day or two. It just tears your gut up sometimes.”

But as a mother who has been there herself, Shuman feels she’s been given a special opportunity.

“I can relate (to the patients and their families),” she said. “We can talk at a deeper level.”

She also can give them hope.

Aaron, one of Spokane area’s first bone marrow transplant survivors, is now a sophomore at West Valley High School.

And his mom now has more requests for pet therapy than she can handle.

“It’s my ministry now,” she said, sitting on her couch with Joy Belle by her side. “I look back and I can’t believe it.”

Once, Shuman said, she believed her son’s cancer was the end of happiness.

Instead, it was a beginning.