Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life

Dec 12, 2023

Listen to ASCO’s Journal of Clinical Oncology essay, “Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life” by Dr. Fumiko Chino, Radiation Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.. The essay is followed by an interview with Chino and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. Chino describes how she became an unlikely cat owner and how her "pet therapy" allowed her to move forward with life as a widow.

TRANSCRIPT

Narrator: Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life, by Fumiko Chino 

My husband and I adopted our cat, Franklin, on a cold November day. It was one of the last days that Andrew felt well enough to leave the house to go anywhere other than to chemotherapy or a doctor’s appointment. Our news at these appointments had shifted toward the negative, with disease progression on scans, low blood counts, and fluid accumulating in places it shouldn’t be. After a year of aggressive treatment, his body was tiring out, and treatment options were becoming limited. Andrew had always wanted a cat, but I was resistant; I knew that I would be taking care of both of them and wasn’t sure that I was ready. At a certain point, though, if your dying husband wants a cat … you get a cat, right?

Franklin was a rescue—a scrappy orange boy with stripy legs and a spotted belly. He played with my husband’s oxygen tubing, batting the plastic back and forth. He adapted quickly and would sit in Andrew’s lap in a warm furry ball, signaling his comfort with loud, full-throated purrs. He would play fetch with my husband, who often wasn’t strong enough to leave the bed. There was a large bowl of wrapped candy in the living room, and Franklin would bring one to the bed. Andrew would throw it from his propped-up perch in the bed; if the angle was perfect, he could fling it from the bedroom, through the slight zig-zag of the hallway, and into the large open living room. Franklin would race off to chase the candy and then trot back to deposit it one more time in Andrew’s lap. They could do this for hours, it seemed, until one of them tired and then they would nap. They both napped a lot.

After Andrew died in March, it was hard to keep a schedule. Days and nights would drift into each other; it was the gray days of late winter before spring showed any promise of life. Franklin was my constant companion and followed me around the house, sitting in the living room to watch a movie or on a kitchen chair to stare at my meals, even into the bathroom. He slept at the foot of the bed and woke me up in the morning to feed him; he made it hard to sleep in all day and forced me to keep at least a semiregular schedule. I walked everywhere, trying to make simple tasks last all day; walking to get Franklin’s food from the pet store was a triumph of activity. We did, of course, take a lot of naps; sleep was an easy escape from my purposeless existence. He would fit his furry warmth in the crook of my knees or sprawl across my lap, mitigating the cold emptiness of a lonely day. He was a living presence when all I could see around me was death.

Grieving is no simple process but, with time, I was able to return to some semblance of a normal life. I found focus in singular steps: researching school options, studying for the MCAT, interviewing for and ultimately entering medical school. One step at time (one application, one class, one shelf) is how I progressed from grieving widow to oncologist. Franklin would sit on the kitchen table where I worked, putting his paw occasionally on my papers or resting his chin on the warm edge of my laptop. He kept me company through grueling hours of studying and welcomed me home from the hospital at all hours of the night, greeting me with a small noise halfway between a squeak and a meow. Franklin was a welcome constant as I reinvented myself as a physician, a comforting touchstone as I shed my former life as an artist and wife and gained new footing as a clinician and researcher.

I am now in my first year as an attending physician in a world-leading cancer center; Franklin has moved with me to a glorious, light-filled apartment in New York City. Looking back over the decade since Andrew died, I know that Franklin was the last gift that he gave me. I was so depressed and lonely; I don’t think I could have survived that first dark winter without his presence, much less made it through medical school and residency. That’s the thing about pets; you care for them, but they also care for you. Franklin provided that extra layer of support that allowed a desperate present to turn into a hopeful future. When I meet with patients and families struggling through treatment now, I try to highlight these simple support goals: physical company, a routine, love and warmth. We talk about who is available to help and what comfort they can provide. And for those struggling alone, I sometimes recommend they consider a trip to the animal rescue. I tell them, they may find that they get rescued too. I know I did.

I moved out of that first house a couple of months after Andrew died. It was too big for just a lady and her cat. When I pushed our bed out from against the wall, I discovered a small pile of candy that had slipped behind his pillow down the back side of the bed. After he was gone, Franklin had continued to bring candy to my husband’s side of the bed and it had been piling up. I sat down on the floor of our big, empty house and cried big, ugly tears while staring at that stale candy. Then, like a gift, Franklin came over and sat in my lap, a small, warm presence, purring.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Hello and welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, which features essays and personal reflections from authors exploring their experience in the field of oncology. I'm your host, Dr. Lidia Schapira. I'm an Associate Editor for Art of Oncology for JCO and a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. 

Today we are joined by Dr. Fumiko Chino, a Radiation Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In this episode, we will be discussing her Art of Oncology article, "Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life." 

At the time of this recording, our guest has no disclosures. 

Fumiko, welcome to our podcast, and thank you for joining us.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here to talk about my pet Franklin, but also to talk about how our animals care for us just as much as we care for them.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: That's a beautiful thought. Let me first start by just expressing my sincere condolence over the loss of your husband. We have met so many times at medical meetings and have had a chance to talk about work, but this is really personal, so I just wanted to start our conversation by acknowledging that very important part.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Thank you. I think a lot of us are drawn to the field of oncology for one reason or another. Sometimes we're anchored by the experiences of our friends or our family members, or that one patient that you couldn't get out of your head in medical school. Mine, obviously, I think, started a little earlier than most with my husband's death, and it kind of drew me kicking and screaming into medicine and then into oncology. But against my sort of better angels, I ended up in oncology. The roots of this tree are strong, basically.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So let's talk a little bit about that and the experience of being a care partner, a caregiver, a caretaker. As a very young woman, I think you were an artist at the time, not in medical school. Can you bear to share with us a little bit about that part of your life, those years or months?

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Sure. So I always say that caregivers are kind of the unpaid glue that keeps the US healthcare system together, functioning, working. And the caregiver experience and the burdens that caregivers have are sort of just barely being explored now within research. And I can certainly tell from my own personal experience that being a young caregiver was very challenging. My husband and I were both in our 20s. We were trying to establish our careers. We had a significant battle about his health insurance, which is a very common problem for young people. And even after he died from cancer, I actually was uninsured because I was on his health insurance. So it's hilarious for me now as a researcher who does research on access and equity and insurance that I myself was uninsured for, I think, about two years, actually. 

But those burdens of caregiving, they're sort of physical exhaustion, they're mental exhaustion, but they're also emotional exhaustion. And it's sort of all of the above, all hands on deck when someone you love is sick. And I think it's part of when I shift into research mode or patient centered care mode, I always try to think about the complete picture for the person in front of me, which is also their spouse, their parent, their sister, sometimes their friend, who are also, I think, part of the journey of cancer, but often sort of unacknowledged.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let's talk a little bit about that, the sort of the emotional side of caregiving. Yes, you talk about burdens and exhaustions, but what I read in your essay is also about the love and connection that you experienced during your husband's illness with him. And then this third party, the story is this adorable cat. Can you talk a little bit about that? All of the positive side, not the burdens of caretaking and caregiving, but the love and connection.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: It's sort of shocking when you go through something critical together, how much that bonds you, how much it deepens your connection and your capacity for communicating effectively and making hard decisions. I always say my husband and I were only married for a year, essentially before he died. But it's like dog years. One year of cancer is sort of like seven normal people years. And so we had so much love and humor and insider jokes going through the experience. It's certainly never recommended for anyone. But I will say that it made me realize how much I did love my husband, how deeply connected we were. 

And then this introduction of a small, fuzzy animal was something that I never realized that would make a difference for me personally, but that would carry me forward through my husband's illness and his death and kind of help me become the full me that I didn't even know I was supposed to be at the time we adopted Franklin. And then again, the love that we had together, our little tiny family unit, a cancer patient, a cancer caregiver, and a rescue cat. We were quite a cohort for as long as we lasted.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And the other incredible theme that emerges from your essay is the grief and the deep, deep grief that you experienced. How long did it take and how did you manage to climb out of that?

Dr. Fumiko Chino: I mean, I'm still grieving, right? So that's the thing about grief, is that it changed shape and color, but it never really goes away. There's this phrase, time heals all wounds, and that's certainly not true. I think that the wound is different. It's not quite as raw, but I'm still grieving. But in terms of pulling myself out of the deep depression that I was in, it was years. I'll be honest. I was sort of groundless. I had no purpose. I feel this sometimes as an oncologist too, which is we feel that when our patient dies that we failed. I only had one job. It was to keep my husband alive, and I didn't do it. And so it took a long time to kind of rebuild myself and my personality when I had quit my job to take care of him. So it really was my only purpose. And then when that went away, it took a long time. 

It's interesting to be on the other side of it now and to sort of think about, well, what are the lessons I can take away from that? To try to practice for myself truly patient centered care and to think  about everything that our patients and their caregivers really need to continue on because it's not an easy thing.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let me just say this and that is that it is absolutely amazing that you have constructed sort of a professional persona from this experience, but it's also your experience and your story. And what I'm so deeply moved by and a little curious about is you're taking it to a story and bringing the narrative side to your professional community. It's not as if you wrote a story or journaled about this and shared it with your friends and family. You actually made yourself vulnerable in a way. And I just want to pick up on that a little bit more because clearly from where I sit, this makes a huge contribution to the discourse in oncology as well, to acknowledge the personal side, the emotional side, and make it a story. And so with that, I just wanted to ask you this. How long did it take or what was the process for this series of experiences that are so intense and emotional to become a story and something you could write?

Dr. Fumiko Chino: That is such a good question. I will be honest to say that I didn't tell any stories at all about my husband having cancer until long after I decided to become an oncologist. And it was only when I was doing the research that I was doing in financial toxicity where I realized that story could make the message of the research more powerful. I knew always why I was doing the research. But having that deeply rooted, personal, let's be honest, terrible story, it could make it more meaningful, it could make it more understandable for people who hadn't personally experienced it. And so I think, similarly, realizing that the larger story of love and loss and of caregiving but also of how these funny things like pets that can make a difference for individuals and families, to develop that into a story that you could tell, again, a decade, to think about how that could turn around essentially into something that is not just a feeling, but is words and paragraphs. 

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Yes. And it was obvious to me when I first read it, the beauty of the position that I have as an editor is that I'm the first reader, is that I felt that I felt the enormous amount of years that went into processing these feelings and then how skillfully you introduce the humor and through the character of the cat. And the cat going to fetch the candy wrappers and bringing them back. I mean, it's beautiful. One of the things Fumiko that I've so admired also about your work is your advocacy, your advocacy for trainees, your advocacy for inclusion and diversity, and your advocacy for pets. Tell us a little bit about how those strong commitments you have to bring people up and to sort of change things for the better are also deeply rooted in your lived experience.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: I have in my life been incredibly privileged. I know this deeply. And I know that even the turning of round of my life from being a grieving cancer widow into being a physician today is deeply rooted in my privilege, from being from a medical family, from being from an educated family, from being from a family where everyone was expected to go to college and succeed in one way or the other. And so realizing that not everyone has that privilege of being able to overcome these obstacles because it's just a pile on. I think sometimes being able to provide that sponsorship and mentorship for other people has been just a strong pillar of my personal mandate for the physician that I wanted to be, for the researcher that I wanted to be. It's rooted from the fact that there's been some bad things that happened in my life, obviously, but my capacity for moving forward and reinventing myself is deeply rooted in my own privilege.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: To bring this short conversation to a close, I wonder if you can reflect a little bit on the role of art. I mean, every time I just see you, I think of art. There's a sort of an artistic aura about you, just the way you accessorize yourself and how you present yourself and all of the images that you choose to post. It's a very deliberate image. So tell us a little bit about both visual art but also stories and how you feel in your role as an academic oncologist they can humanize our culture, they can inspire, they can help, they can even inform research questions. I'd love to hear your thoughts about that.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Whenever I was in high school, I had these two great loves, and they were science and they were art. And unfortunately, I think I grew up in an era where you really did have to go one way or the other. And so for me, I chose art. And so I had a Bachelor's of Fine Arts. I was immersed deeply in the art world as a young adult and as a growing faculty. It was only cancer that kind of brought me into the science again. But having been immersed in art for so long, when I transitioned over to the more medical school residency, now as an attending, I never wanted to leave the art behind because it so deeply informs how we view the world. And I think that perspective, that shift that comes with looking at a new piece of art, it makes us all stronger observers and, I think, stronger communicators. 

And we all approach art very differently. The example I'll give is that my husband was really into jazz, and I hate free jazz. It just drives me insane. Because for me, my question always is for a piece of art - so in this case, free jazz - what are they trying to communicate to me? And he said, “Well, that's not how I take it. I say, how would it feel to make this music? It's the actual mechanics of making the music and absorbing the music.” And that's how he interpreted that form of art. And I was just always like, “Oh, but I don't get what are they trying to tell me?” And I think that is also just incredibly amazing, that art communicates different things to different people. And it reminds me to take a break and to say, you know what, I feel so steadfast in my opinion that this is the right way of doing something and it could be that someone is going to take it in a totally different direction.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let's end on a note on Franklin. Is Franklin still with you?

Dr. Fumiko Chino: So I was happy to be recording this podcast now. So Franklin died last month. 

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I'm so sorry. He died in my home with a home hospice vet. And it was really beautiful. It was exactly what I would want for myself if and when I go, to be surrounded by love and comfort. He was with me for 17 years. Obviously, got me through a lot. And it was a message to me how we could be doing better for our patients as well. He did have cancer, and he had cancer that was rapidly growing. And so that way of putting a bookend in our experiences with cancer, I feel like it was the last message that he gave me that that's the gift I could give to him.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Well, take care of yourself, please. Again, my condolences on losing Franklin. Thank you for your openness and for your willingness to share. So we are so fortunate to have you in our ranks. I'm very glad that you're doing what you're doing.

Dr. Fumiko Chino: I appreciate the time to talk to you again. This message about a silly cat and his human, I think, certainly it's my story, but I know that many of our patients also have this deep connection with their animals and it really does carry them through some very dark nights. 

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So until next time and thank you for joining me today in this very moving interview. Thank you for listening to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, and for our listeners, don't forget to give us a rating or review and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find all of the ASCO Shows at asco.org/podcast. Until next time.

The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. 

Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.

 

Show Notes:

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Guest Bio: 

Dr. Fumiko Chino is a Radiation Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.