Remembering Cyril
On Friday, May 26, Victoria Hesford and I said goodbye to our beloved pup Cyril. We had been co-dependent companion species for over 13 years and the feeling of loss has been profound, demonstrating for me the psychosomatic qualities of grief. People who follow me on social media know that I frequently posted pictures of Cyril because he was a truly beautiful, soulful pup with a quirky spirit who liked to jump on things and pose for pictures (he was very treat motivated, as they say). He loved going for long walks in Avalon in Stony Brook and Fort Greene Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. After Hurricane Sandy downed countless trees, he began jumping on anything and everything and posing for pics (for a treat, of course). Shortly after his death, we created a rock cairn on a tree stump at Avalon to remember him and as homage to his talent for striking elegant poses.
On the left: Cyril at Avalon sitting on a tree stump high off the ground with bright sun shining through the trees behind him. On the right, a rock cairn sits on a tree stump at Avalon, echoing Cyril’s pose, and placed as a memorial to him.
We are forever grateful to North Shore Animal League, which is the largest no-kill shelter in North America and the place from which we adopted Cyril. A month after we adopted him, he was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, which is a chronic but treatable condition in which the adrenal glands don’t produce enough cortisol and aldosterone. When we spotted him at North Shore, he had just come from being treated in the health center for what they thought was a gastrointestinal problem. He was placed in the part for older dogs, and we were immediately drawn to this sickly 5-month-old runt with beautiful light-brown eyes. As we would soon learn, Addison’s masks as other conditions, especially gastrointestinal ailments, and this is why it can be deadly, especially in dogs. After his Addison’s diagnosis, North Shore subsidized his Addison’s care. One of the many amazing vets at North Shore who treated him over the years taught me how to give him his monthly injections of corticosteroids. North Shore would send us home with several months’ worth of meds, which lessened the number of stressful vet visits we had to make. As all the guidance about Addison’s says, it is crucial to get the right balance of replacement steroids, through daily oral steroids, monthly injections, and regular bloodwork to measure levels of sodium and potassium. Even at the very end of his life, Cyril’s Addison’s was under control.
Cyril passed away just as I was finishing my book Illness Politics on Social Media soon to be published as part of the Forerunners Series at University of Minnesota Press. I mention Cyril in my acknowledgements not just because he had been an important part of my life as I thought and wrote about illness politics, but also because his own illness influenced the project, at least indirectly. The vet who diagnosed Cyril had told us, “Addison’s is what JFK had.” Not missing a beat, Vicky replied, “Well, at least Cyril can still be president.” After his diagnosis, I began reading about Addison’s, and learned that Kennedy had kept his diagnosis of Addison’s secret in the 1960 presidential election, fearing that it would have been viewed by many as disqualifying. Thus, in many ways, our experience with Cyril’s Addison’s was the beginning of my book on illness politics.
On the left: Cyril at Avalon in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy had downed numerous trees. Cyril is lying on the end of a large uprooted tree that had fallen across the trail and been cut and cleared off the trail. The base of the tree remained in the ground and created a kind of runway up into the air that Cyril would jump on and climb up. He would then pose at the end, sometimes with his paws hanging over the edge, as he does here. He looks pensively to one side. On the right: the same spot 11 years later. The tree was cut again, making it more stumpy. The tree is disappearing back into the ground as it decomposes. Moss is growing on the uprooted soil behind the stump.