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Chewy: A Doctor's Tail: Amazing Lessons from a Service Dog as Transcribed By a Medical Doctor
Despite having two years of graduate-level study in microbiology, a medical degree and practice in family medicine, it took me ten years to write this book. It started as a prescription from my neurologist to aid my traumatic brain injury. My car flew off an elevated highway with devastating consequence. I sustained four surgeries, chronic pain, but worse: A diagnosis of dementia (92% disabled both physically and mentally) and going into Alzheimer's disease.
In brief, this book recounts the hero's journey of a man and his dog (both heroes) falling as far as possible then struggling back to be neurotypical.
Numerous books on training dogs, diet, and medical care are available. Here I provide only my unique perspective on service dogs as both the patient and a doctor. After my car accident, I survived with severe brain damage, many surgeries, and a service dog. Slowly, I fell into dementia, chronic physical pain, and homelessness. Consequently, a plan for suicide developed.
As my body and mind were hijacked for years, I subsequently lost my house, job, wife, and identity. My memory was so affected I could not remember my address without looking at my driver's license. Further, even if just finishing a meal, I would eat another one having forgotten the first. Losing my cerebral cortex (the part of the brain making us human) my behavior was unstable and animal-like much of the time.
What I have regained is my unique voice as a scientist and a doctor. Further, I have seen many advancements in my condition after eight years with my dog. Canines have brightened and enhanced the lives of many other severely injured patients in unimaginable ways. I hope to convince you to obtain a service animal for yourself or a loved one. These superheroes need to be on the staff of hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. They are authentic physician extenders.
This book has three sections. In the first, I recount my strange and marvelous rehabilitation with my dog. People have a vague understanding that dogs can help with diabetes, seizures, and guide the blind. They do much more than that.
A short list of aid my service dog provides are as follows: Chewy has decreased my depression and suicidal ideation while increasing my socialization and language skills. He certainly relieved my desperate isolation, increased my mobility, lessened my chronic pain. Overall, these "treatments" have lowered the medical cost of my traumatic brain injury.
The second section concerns the families, caretakers, neighborhoods, and cities of the disabled. These are all strongly affected by dogs with service vests seen in streets, stores, churches, and airports. They are ambassadors for the impaired and the sick. They can significantly reduce the burden of care on a family by giving the patient more independence.
The third section concerns the bigger picture. Delivering a lecture at the Fort Worth medical school, the societal benefits of service animals are enumerated. Understanding is spreading. Alzheimer's Centers are using dogs to keep patients calm and happy. Brain research has advanced since the 1990s and is now spilling over to include the animal kingdom.
The complex consciousness of dogs is a surprise to scientists. Studies are now occurring to raise the value of all animals. Post-surgical heart attack patients paired with service dogs do 40% better. This prevents costly readmissions to hospitals. In today's world, medical procedures can be cookie-cutter. Doctors' prescriptions are based on generic diseases, not the individual patient. Singular treatments are what I hope to encourage. Trained dogs do this by molding themselves to their owners, providing help in ways that are quite wonderful.
My hope for the reader is to understand the outstanding support a service dog can give.
In brief, this book recounts the hero's journey of a man and his dog (both heroes) falling as far as possible then struggling back to be neurotypical.
Numerous books on training dogs, diet, and medical care are available. Here I provide only my unique perspective on service dogs as both the patient and a doctor. After my car accident, I survived with severe brain damage, many surgeries, and a service dog. Slowly, I fell into dementia, chronic physical pain, and homelessness. Consequently, a plan for suicide developed.
As my body and mind were hijacked for years, I subsequently lost my house, job, wife, and identity. My memory was so affected I could not remember my address without looking at my driver's license. Further, even if just finishing a meal, I would eat another one having forgotten the first. Losing my cerebral cortex (the part of the brain making us human) my behavior was unstable and animal-like much of the time.
What I have regained is my unique voice as a scientist and a doctor. Further, I have seen many advancements in my condition after eight years with my dog. Canines have brightened and enhanced the lives of many other severely injured patients in unimaginable ways. I hope to convince you to obtain a service animal for yourself or a loved one. These superheroes need to be on the staff of hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. They are authentic physician extenders.
This book has three sections. In the first, I recount my strange and marvelous rehabilitation with my dog. People have a vague understanding that dogs can help with diabetes, seizures, and guide the blind. They do much more than that.
A short list of aid my service dog provides are as follows: Chewy has decreased my depression and suicidal ideation while increasing my socialization and language skills. He certainly relieved my desperate isolation, increased my mobility, lessened my chronic pain. Overall, these "treatments" have lowered the medical cost of my traumatic brain injury.
The second section concerns the families, caretakers, neighborhoods, and cities of the disabled. These are all strongly affected by dogs with service vests seen in streets, stores, churches, and airports. They are ambassadors for the impaired and the sick. They can significantly reduce the burden of care on a family by giving the patient more independence.
The third section concerns the bigger picture. Delivering a lecture at the Fort Worth medical school, the societal benefits of service animals are enumerated. Understanding is spreading. Alzheimer's Centers are using dogs to keep patients calm and happy. Brain research has advanced since the 1990s and is now spilling over to include the animal kingdom.
The complex consciousness of dogs is a surprise to scientists. Studies are now occurring to raise the value of all animals. Post-surgical heart attack patients paired with service dogs do 40% better. This prevents costly readmissions to hospitals. In today's world, medical procedures can be cookie-cutter. Doctors' prescriptions are based on generic diseases, not the individual patient. Singular treatments are what I hope to encourage. Trained dogs do this by molding themselves to their owners, providing help in ways that are quite wonderful.
My hope for the reader is to understand the outstanding support a service dog can give.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2018
2 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 2, 2020
Chewy's heart-wrenching and heart-warming tail of Dr Herlihy's hopelessness and ultimate salvation made me -- and will make you -- cry and laugh. Chewy tails how they luckily came together on an off-the-cuff suggestion and weathered the storm of traumatic brain injury. This is a true hero's journey. We learn from the time Dr Herlihy was on top of the world and fall with him to a dark, bottomless pit of loss -- complete loss of family, status, wealth, and profession -- as a result of his TBI. His poetic descriptions of the quirky characters he and Chewy meet and live with are a brilliant touch of their new life on the street. Whether a doctor, nurse, caregiver, or regular person everyone will learn what homeless life on the dangerous streets feels like and how we all can change our attitudes to the men and women who survive there. Chewy: A Doctor's Tail is the first in a series of four books that Dr Herlihy will share with us. I recommend all four - powerful, wonderful, informative, and educational. Go to Dr Herlihy's author page and ask post your questions for him. Buy Dr Herlihy's four books and travel with him along his path to recovery from near accidental and self-inflicted death.
November 6, 2018
As brash and unsanitized as Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but in the opposite direction, Chewy: a doctor’s tail grants the reader no quarter in a return to sanity from a horrific and devastating accident. The narrative gaffes and idiosyncrasies mirror as exactly as the printed page can the dire aspects and bitter struggles of the case. Only the arrival of rat terrier, Chewy, and the development of a symbiotic rescue can save the patient and the reader. This is more than Toto and Dorothy gone dark; this is life and death, a welcomed respite from a-boy-and-his-dog.
An absence of proper interior book design and formatting are the only faults. Text bodies shift from page to page, pagination is missing altogether, and clip art substitutes for real transition. However, the overall construction of the volume is sound and the faults worth overlooking because Dr. Herlihy defines what it takes to come back from the dead.
An absence of proper interior book design and formatting are the only faults. Text bodies shift from page to page, pagination is missing altogether, and clip art substitutes for real transition. However, the overall construction of the volume is sound and the faults worth overlooking because Dr. Herlihy defines what it takes to come back from the dead.
May 13, 2019
Good read
This is a very entertaining story about triumph and how to deal with life. It shows how to rebound and bounce back with the assistance of service dogs.
This is a very entertaining story about triumph and how to deal with life. It shows how to rebound and bounce back with the assistance of service dogs.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews