We all love a heart warming story, and this is one of the best. In her own words Joanne tells us how they saved each others lives… if ever in any doubt that rescue is the best breed, read on …
How it all started
“In 2016 I had to say goodbye to my dog who had been at my side for 17 years, I was heartbroken but knew that I wanted to adopt a dog. Whilst looking for rescue dogs I discovered Healing Paws Animal Rescue, founded by British born, Sue Deeth, who was taking in abandoned dogs on the small Greek Island of Zante.
On the Healing Paws website I saw a little face peering out at me and was instantly in love. We went to visit Sue and ended up adopting 2 dogs! In April 2018 I fostered a dog for Sue – a poor soul who had been chained to a barrel with her pups and left to starve. My son ended up adopting her. Then in late 2018 I saw the heartbreaking pictures of Menios, and I knew I had to do something….
He was in mainland Greece being looked after by an acquaintance of Sue’s. The lady who had him could not keep him and he was going to be put back with the other dogs, weighing just 5kg, it was doubtful that he would have survived. I contacted Sue and offered to foster him.
Sue organised for little Menios to join the Healing Paws transport to the UK. We collected him from Maidstone services on the 23rd December 2018. He was still a little underweight and his back legs were very weak causing him to fall over frequently. I assumed he just needed a good quality diet and to gradually build up exercise to strengthen his legs.
However, by February there was no improvement and I asked Sue if I could take him to an orthopaedic specialist who had operated on one of our dogs.
The orthopaedic specialist’s findings
The verdict was shocking, both back knees were dislocated, the femur was bent and the tibia had been broken. The vet said he must be in excruciating pain and a major operation was needed urgently.
This was a huge problem for Sue and the charity because there were no funds to cover the £5,000 cost for surgery. But Sue and the charity were wonderful and a fundraiser was started straight away and, with the support of the Healing Paws community more than £5,000 was raised in less than a week! Sue and the Healing Paws team gave so much support to Menios to enable him to get his operation and they gave me a huge amount emotional support as well.
Menios had his surgery and after 5 days came back to me to recuperate. He had to stay in a crate whilst healing so in the evenings when we were sitting down I would lift him out and place him next to me with my arm around him to make sure he didn’t move or jump down. He needed the cuddles for sure.
Menios starts acting strangely …
Then something very strange started happening …. Menios would sniff at my right breast and would get quite distressed, sometimes he would just put his nose to my breast and freeze. It reminded me of the police sniffer dogs!
20 years previously I had had breast cancer and was successfully treated, so, despite having had a mammogram only a month prior to this, I was concerned and booked an appointment to my doctor. The doctor said he couldn’t feel anything but due to my history he would refer me. Again nothing showed on the second mammogram. A further ultrasound showed an area they thought was just fibrous tissue, but as a precaution a biopsy was taken.
The results came back… it was invasive lobular carcinoma. Lobular cancer does not always show up on scans. I was then immediately scheduled for surgery to remove the tumour and a few lymph nodes were also removed to see if the cancer had spread.
Whilst waiting for the results Menios continued to sniff at me, staring at me and getting distressed. My husband said it was probably the wound he could detect.
The results came back and luckily it had not yet spread to the lymph nodes but worryingly they did not get clear margins, meaning there were still some cancer cells left. So I was scheduled for further surgery. Only after that second surgery did Menios stop sniffing at me and became more relaxed.
The rehab …
The results came back and all of the tumour had been removed. Menios himself went on to have a further six surgeries as his right leg would not heal partly due to the broken bones that had previously healed on their own. He went on to have a complete knee replacement. He also had gunshot pellets removed from his back as well. I went on to have 15 sessions of radiotherapy and we both needed physiotherapy as well. Menios had hydrotherapy whilst I had special swimming sessions. We finished treatment at the same time.
At a follow up appointment the oncologist looked at all my scans and asked how I had known I had cancer as it wasn’t seen on any of the scans!
I told him it was my dog, my dog saved my life.
The oncologist said I needed to start exercising more to aid my recovery as cancer treatment is harsh both physically and emotionally. So everyday Menios and I would set off on our walks, gradually increasing our distance. I would look down at him trotting beside me, him looking up at me and I said “thank you my friend, together we can beat this”.
Happy ending
Last November I welcomed my first grandchild into the world a beautiful little girl, if it hadn’t been for Menios I might never have met her. Obviously he is no longer a foster dog, he has his forever home with us, and we couldn’t love him any more than we do.
Menios’ legs will never be quite right but he can run again and he is happy and he now weighs 13kg.
A massive thank you to Sue, Healing Paws Animal Rescue and all the kind people who supported us on our journey together.”
Support Healing Paws Animal Rescue
If you would like to support the work of Healing Paws Animal Rescue which is a UK registered charity you can do so via this link to our Paypal account.
Thank you!
