Juniper the unicorn

Certain things in life are binary. You either like Marmite, or you only eat Bovril. You are either an Android person, or you are loyal (usually incredibly so) to Apple. I don’t know anyone who does not have strong feelings about coriander. You either love or hate it. For some reason, no one is indifferent to this glorious little herb. As a committed, cat-person, I also thought that one is either a cat or dog-person, but it turns out, I was wrong.

A while ago, there were some discussions about Lizette, an amazing permanent resident here at Hospitality Lodges. You can read more about her in a previous blog : https://www.sunninghillrecoverylodge.co.za/2144-2/? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

?She suddenly looked very frail and she was often sad. When I met her last year at her home, she had a pack of dogs in her room and one was perched proudly at the end of her bed. I kept in the back of my mind that we needed to get her a dog of her own again – someone she could love, a new purpose and a loving presence. I hoped that the right dog would find her, but did not really think it was possiblepossible if I am totally honest. This dog would have to be a special little guy. He or she would have to fit in with our other guests, patients, visitors, and our gate that opens and closes a hundred times a day. It couldn’t be a barker, as there are new people on the property all the time, and I would lose the will to live if I had to continually ask it to quiet down. He/she could not be too hairy and shed everywhere, as we still need to meet our standards and regular inspections from the important abbreviations. We’d arranged Top-dog to come and visit with their beautiful dogs and found that retrievers and labs are too big to cuddle on the bed, so this dog also needed to be small, but not too small that it would disappear all the time. It felt like I might as well have wanted a unicorn for her.

Now, I know we all complain about medical aids, but I do want to give credit where it is due. The group of people in charge of Discovery Health’s AIB (advanced illness benefit) are probably as rare in the corporate world as that unicorn I was looking for (and no, they are not paying me to say this). I’ve witnessed their passion and involvement in many cases, and although I always thought that they only cared about numbers, profits and bottom lines, in this department, the patient matters… not just their diagnosis, but their very soul. Through a person looking after AIB patients, we finally found that elusive unicorn-dog I didn’t think existed.

Young Junior arrived on Thursday. He got out of the car as if he always knew he was meant to end up with us. We walked him to Lizette’s room, where he was only too happy to get onto the bed with her and cuddle her, and that is pretty much where he stayed for the day.

On Friday morning, I decided I would walk him on a lead, and show him his new home. Well, that did not work for him. He was totally unimpressed being led around, and very soon I realised that he would happily follow me on his own, but under no circumstances was he going to be pulled around on a leash. I am amazed at how quickly he settled in, he knew where his food was, where he was meant to sleep, and apart from realising that Lizette was his most important beneficiary of love, he had enough compassion and kindness to spread some around. Soon, all the visitors were besotted. I’ve found him on the laps of many a guest (and keep in mind, he is not tiny) and he has owned his role as staff member, joining our daily morning brief and sitting with the team when they have both lunch and breakfast. He trots around the property, greeting everyone and sundry, but every few minutes, he goes to check on Lizette, has regular naps with her and, when it rains, he lies directly under the head of her bed to protect her.

All this makes it sound as if we have had no hiccups, and if you follow the blog, you’d know, we never have a totally smooth-sailing adventure here. We discovered that Junior from Diepsloot, was not the only Junior from Diepsloot. Our one carer, is also called Junior, and funnily enough, is from the same township. We decided that Junior, the dog, will have to let his name go, and we changed it to Juniper, which, seeing that I am rather fond of gin, was wonderfully appropriate.

It has been five days and Juniper is like a little ray of sunshine, skipping around with his tail wagging. This morning I popped into Lizette’s room and young Juniper was lying on her sheepskin, cuddled up right next to her, enjoying the air-conditioning and the hum of her ventilator. I held Lizette’s face in both my hands and thanked her for rescuing him. She smiled brightly, and without her saying it, I think she agreed that they rescued each other.