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Wednesday, November 27, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Heidi works Fridays at UPMC Montefiore Hospital in Oakland.

It's easy to see why she likes it.

	Heidi the St. Bernard visits Creed Shock at Montefiore Hospital, where the dog, accompanied by a physical therapist, makes the rounds Friday afternoons to cheer up patients. (Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette photos)

She's got great hours: 3 to 4 p.m. She gets a parking spot. And her colleagues couldn't be nicer. She can just be herself -- a snuffling, slobbering St. Bernard.

This health-care gig, which Heidi has had for nearly a year, was an abrupt departure from her intended career path.

Her family, the Valkos of Shaler, raised her to show and to breed. They're St. Bernard buffs, and Heidi had it pretty good; she had the run of the house and yard.

Heidi's "mom," Cindy Valko, recalls being at home with her March 15, 1999. Heidi, who was about 2, shuffled into the bedroom dragging her rear left leg. Cindy thought she had a pebble in her paw, but as soon as she put her arms around her and felt her heavy breathing and pounding heart ... well, besides being a dog person, Cindy is a nurse. She knew something was very wrong.

She and her husband, George, hurried Heidi to the vet. By the time they got there, both rear legs were paralyzed. By the next morning, vets had ruled out a spinal cord compression, but they still weren't sure what had happened. Perhaps a clot had cut off the blood to her spine.

The Valkos thought she would die. Or they'd have to put her down.

But after several days, Heidi regained control of her bladder and bowels and wasn't in any pain. She just couldn't move her rear legs. The Valkos decided to keep her.

They had a wheelchair specially built that supports her rear end while she stands on her front legs. She can propel herself in this when she's outside the house. Otherwise, by dragging herself and crawling, she gets around almost as well as the Valkos' two other St. Bernards, Beatrice and Lotto. As Cindy Valko puts it, "She can make it from the family room to the front door faster than I can."

	Heidi is to appear in Saturday's Celebrate the Season Parade, Downtown, with other canine and human members of the St. Bernard Club of Western Pennsylvania. The parade, hosted by Kaufmann's and WPXI-TV, will be televised on Channel 11 between 9 and 11 a.m. as it goes from Mellon Arena down Fifth Avenue to Kaufmann's. Other dogs are to pull Heidi on a cart.

Heidi even can bump down stairs by herself. Her favorite way to go upstairs is for her "brother" -- the Valkos' nearly 21-year-old son who's also named George -- to pick her up and carry her. She'll let him "wheelbarrow" her, too -- hold up her rear while she walks with her front legs. She weighs about 120 pounds, but he weighs 240. George is her best buddy.

Hiring Heidi at Montefiore was the idea of Debbie Mangol, director of the rehabilitation unit there. She knew Cindy Valko, now endocrine nurse coordinator at UPMC's nearby Falk Clinic, because she used to work at Montefiore.

Mangol previously had used a therapy dog, but not one with a handicap (nor one so large). She thought that even though Heidi doesn't have a degree from therapy dog school, she'd be especially great dog therapy for rehab patients, because many of them are using wheelchairs, too.

She was right.

Every Friday now, the younger George Valko can tell Heidi is excited as he gets ready to drive her to work. As insurance against accidents, Heidi wears one of the medium adult diapers that George adapts by cutting out notches for her tail. He packs an extra one in her "Big Dog" tote bag, puts that and the wheelchair into his car or the family van, then wheelbarrows Heidi out and they're off.

At the parking garage, he sets up the wheelchair and harnesses in her hind end. The straps cause her to involuntarily wiggle in what looks like a whole-body wag. Before he follows her inside, he puts on her security tag, which has a drawing of a St. Bernard with a cask on its neck and reads, "Heidi Jo, UPMC Health System."

A recent Friday is typical, in that Heidi had people wondering and smiling and talking puppy talk before she even rolled onto the elevator. "Hi, puppy!" "Hi, sweetie!" "Awwwwwww!"

Up on the 11th floor, George turns Heidi over to recreation therapist Mike King, who spends a few minutes with her before saying, "You ready to go to work?"

Heidi always is.

It's not that hard. She and King just roll from room to room in the rehab unit, where up to 20 patients at a time begin recovering from everything from neurological disorders to broken bones to cancer surgery to transplants.

Mike first makes sure each patient wants to see Heidi. Then they go in for a few minutes. Heidi's role usually is to be stroked, both physically and verbally.

"There's my big girl!" Ervin "Dean" Johnson says from his bed. He's come to know Heidi because he's been in the unit for several weeks after suffering a stroke and other complications from kidney and heart surgery. You can't tell how tough it's been by how bright his face and voice are as he pets Heidi.

"Isn't she gorgeous, hon?" gushes Johnson's wife, Geraldine. "Hi, precious. Hi, darling."

	George and Cindy Valko of Shaler had a wheelchair specially built for Heidi after the dog's rear legs were paralyzed.

Amid the fussing, Heidi's nose hits his nurse call button, and an intercom voice immediately asks, "Can we help you?"

"No," Mike says with a grin. "Just an accident."

And they're off to the next room.

Minutes later, as her husband snoozes, Geraldine Johnson quietly explains how much Heidi's visits mean, especially to a dog lover like Dean. He has six snapshots on his bulletin board of his and his son's springer spaniels, Pixie and Cody, back home in Batavia, N.Y.

The patient across the hall is a new guy, recovering from a transplant. He's sitting in a wheelchair when this big dog comes in in a wheelchair. The man's wife asks, "Is she here to help someone?" King tells them Heidi's tale.

When King explains to another curious patient how Heidi's paralysis probably was from a stroke, the man says, "Sounds like me," while patting her on the head, then jokes about her not wearing a keg. "You drank all the brandy!"

One woman wants to see Heidi so much that she walks down the hall to her, with the help of a walker and an aide. Her hand is more tentative as she reaches out to pet this big dog. Her smile isn't.

Heidi literally touches the dog lover in lots of people, says King. And her wheelchair prompts more than just questions and conversation. "It's the idea that, 'If she can do it, I should be able to do it. Even if I can't do everything I could do before, I can still have a life.' "

If anything, Heidi is too anxious to keep moving, to visit the next patient, and to get back to George, who lets her slop water from her water bottle and rewards her with three pieces of "Pup-Peroni."

The young man was in UPMC Presbyterian Hospital himself in May, for open-heart surgery to fix a damaged heart valve.

Guess who came to see him?