Juliet

Juliet was a friend long before she was a patient. That all changed when she divorced her first husband and met her true love, Dan. Before that, she couldn't see me as her physician because the previous husband imagined some voyeurism on my part or, worse, was paranoid over even more debaucherous suspicions. In all fairness, I can understand his reluctance, catching the way I would look at her; but my gazes weren't salacious, just an appreciation for the gift that Juliet was. My looks at her--not in any way longing for her on the outside--showed a love for her inner beauty, which is the rightful definition of true friendship.

So, Juliet wasn't just a friend before she was a patient; she was a dear friend. Should friends be any less? Once she became engaged to Dan, she was free to do what she pleased and had finally agreed to accept me as her doctor. Such is the nature of a secure relationship.

A week before her scheduled appointment I was invited to Dan's and her place for dinner. Dan was a K-9 trainer for the National Guard, so there was always a dog or two there to share the company. Big dogs. Well-mannered dogs. Juliet helped Dan with his animal training and obedience business. She fit right in--an animal lover all her life; and the dogs loved her right back.

I arrived just a few minutes late that evening, so dinner was ready to be served. Juliet greeted me at the door, along with a male German Shepherd named "Neo." At the threshold, Neo sniffed me out and apparently approved. Juliet led me to the table where the other guests were waiting, Dan and two neighbors.

"Sit," she instructed Neo, who dutifully went to a corner of the dining room and sat. Then, "Sit," to me, and I dutifully took my chair to laughter from around the table.

"Y'all surely do great work with these dogs," I said.

"Thanks. It gets easier the longer you work with them," Juliet replied. "I love them, and they know that. They're a part of that love, right Neo?"

Suddenly Neo sprang to his feet.

"Neo," Juliet said firmly, "I told you to sit."

Neo disobeyed.

He had his tail between his legs and walked stiffly toward Juliet. "Neo!" Neo ignored her, on some mission of his own. "I don't get it; he's never acted like this before. Something instinctual going on here--something that's above the hard-wiring of his training."

Neo barked at her.

"Maybe he wants to go out," I offered.

"No," Dan just brought him out a few minutes ago and he did everything.

"Maybe not everything," I suggested.

"Neo, do you want to go outside," she asked him, with emphasis on that target word. He stood at her feet without reaction--didn't even perk his ears.

"Neo," Dan said emphatically."Kennel!" Neo continued to stand defiantly inert, and a worried look came over Juliet.

"Do you think there's something terribly wrong?" Juliet asked him.

"I don't know. Physically he seems fine," Dan answered.

"No, I mean mentally."

At this point, Neo lurched up and was tall enough to put his paws on Juliet's shoulders. He suddenly licked her mouth, and Juliet sputtered in protest. "Neo," she said, "get down." Neo dropped to a standing position again in front of her; but now he jammed his muzzle firmly into her abdomen and began sniffing repeatedly, increasing the effort progressively until he was snorting. Then growling. Juliet looked at her company and blushed, embarrassed. Besides her dog acting bizarrely, she also felt a certain indictment of her abilities as a trainer.

Dan rose from the table and walked over to seize Neo by his choke chain collar. He growled at him, the mortal sin of any student service dog, and Dan yanked on the collar to secure him, then led him through the laundry room door and closed it to shut him in with his kennel. Neo began crying like a new puppy.

Juliet and Dan were obviously humiliated, professionally, by Neo's behavior, so the guests and I didn't broach the subject, allowing the affair to go smoothly and pleasantly for the rest of the evening. Just us people, none of the dogs.

Later that night I received a frantic call from Dan about Juliet.

"When Juliet released Neo from his kennel he charged her," he blurted. "Straight into her abdomen so hard it knocked her into the wall. She hit her head and got knocked out. And then..." Dan, shouting by now, "Neo attacked her."

Neo had mauled her, indeed, lacerating her abdomen with deep bites which bled profusely.

"It was like Neo was in a trance, in a kill frenzy," Dan said, now somberly.

"Did you call 9-1-1-?" I asked him.

"Yes, yes," Dan stammered, "of course. They're here now and have her on a gurney. Please meet us at the hospital."

"I'm on my way."

In the ER, the emergency physician reported to me at the curtain that separated Juliet from us. "She's lost a lot of blood, but I don't think there are any internal injuries. I've sutured the worst lacerations and cauterized some bleeders, so I think the blood loss is over. We have her on triple antibiotics and we're getting a CT scan on her head due to her concussion. While we have her in the Imaging Department, we're gonna get an abdominal ultrasound, just in case, to rule out any internal bleeding. But the bleeding we know of has been stopped."

I threw the curtain aside and peaked in. "May I?"

Juliet smiled. "Of course," she offered, in a whisper. She was receiving the second of two units of blood and had been sedated for the suturing that had been done. "I guess my bikini days are over," she said. She had been crying, but not from the pain. "I don't get it," she said hoarsely. "He was a sweet puppy. He worshipped me--wouldn't leave my side."

"Stop," I told her. "Don't get worked up. I don't want to see your blood pressure spike before they've ruled out anything going on in your head."

"Oh, that. I was only out for a minute," she said.

"Still," I cautioned her, raising a finger to my lips.

"O.K.," she agreed.

Neo had been been isolated immediately and was at the vet's office for a complete check-up. While we were waiting for Juliet's CT and ultrasound results, Dan told me that, so far, the vet had reported all was well. Neo seemed cheerful with everyone else and was obeying all of his usual commands. Dan began talking out loud, more to himself, as he ruminated on what might have happened to cause this attack. Then, like snapping out of one reverie, he sank into another.

"Oh, God, I hope she's O.K.," he said. It was a prayer.

"Look," I reassured him, all her vitals are steady, her blood count's stable now. As long as the scans are OK, we're fine."

"Only Neo, then," he said.

"Yea," I agreed, "only Neo to worry about. What are you going to do about him?"

"One thing at a time, I guess," Dan answered.

My dear friend Juliet died several months later, but not because of Neo. No, Neo had tried to save her. He attacked the vicious monster that was attacking his beloved Juliet.

What the scans had shown, besides a negative head CT, was a late stage ovarian cancer in her abdomen. She had to undergo surgery soon after that, which did nothing to prolong, much less save, her life. Her surgeons were no more successful than Neo had been.

The difference between those surgeons and Neo was that they were professionals--objective, whereas Neo was her protector, defender, guardian, and champion. He saw the monster clearly with the 20/20 vision of olfaction and knew how deadly and ugly it was. Neo saw his obligation no different than what the oncology surgeon had said to Dan as Juliet was being rolled into the OR weeks later: "For a malignancy like this, surgery of maximum effort is indicated."

Neo, likewise, knew only an aggressive maximum effort was obligatory, even if it meant he had to gnaw through Juliet to get to her future murderer.

Neo had tried. The surgeons had tried.

Dan, against all advice, had taken Neo back into the household. He knew that this gift from God--like all dogs were--was a beautiful, sentient creature who had accepted the quest to save his Juliet. The tumor had won and Juliet remains forever a part of our lives as a sacred and cherished memory of her, more solid and impervious than any granite headstone could ever be. She, too, was a gift from God to all who knew her, and gifts from God just keep on giving.

Dan understood what Neo was doing that night at the dinner table. He concluded that Neo and his nose had obviously crossed paths with other people with serious illness subsequent to that episode, but he the dog had never again responded the way he had with Juliet. Dan wondered why. But I know why.

Neo was of Juliet. Dogs take friendship to a divine level, and if I was in love with the inside Juliet, I can only imagine how Neo saw her monster as his monster. Battling past the three-headed Hellhound Cerberus, he would have dragged that monster through the gates of Hell for his Juliet and slammed them shut behind the malicious creature, where it belonged, and where it finally remained, while Juliet went to another place altogether to wait for her all the champions and lovers in her life.