Cancer patient and her dog cheer up those in need of a smile

Wayne Armstrong's weathered hand grips Jesse James' collar, holding on tight, desperate to pull the dog closer to him.

In turn, Jesse James turns his big brown eyes to Armstrong and seems to understand. He relaxes and lies across Armstrong's legs, setting his head down on the old man.

Patty Crossey-Ross smiles as she watches the scene.

"He's been missing you," she tells Armstrong.

"He has?"

These are some of the first words Armstrong has spoken in months. A stroke made it difficult for him to speak. Now, he's dying of cancer and has become increasingly withdrawn - until he's visited by the big, lovable dog and tall, pretty woman with blazing red hair.

This is what Jesse James and Crossey-Ross do: visit nursing homes and grieving children and hospice patients to bring a smile or comfort.

What the comforted often don't know is that Crossey-Ross, 53, is fighting a battle of her own, and she might die before they do.

Lightning strikes twice

In the summer of 2005, Crossey-Ross was diagnosed with cancer - multiple myeloma to be precise. A cancer of the plasma cell, it's an "incurable but treatable disease," according to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

"They're real clear," she says. "This is what I will die of."

Suddenly, her life changed.

Crossey-Ross grew up in Colorado Springs in a family of seven kids. Six of them went to public school, but one problem child - Patty - was sent to St. Mary's High School to receive special guidance. After graduating with a master's degree from Colorado College, she taught elementary and middle school in District 11 for 29 years. She loved the goofiness of middle school life, the process kids go through of trying on different hats as they sort out who they are. And she was the kind of teacher who helped them figure out things about themselves, the kind of teacher kids remember. But her illness kept her from returning to the classroom when the school year started in 2005.

"Everything was taken away from me, like that," says Crossey-Ross, who also was a volleyball coach, foster parent and horse lover who gave riding lessons. "I still have more teaching in me."

Crossey-Ross had a bone marrow transplant in November 2005 to buy herself some time.

The woman next to her at the hospital had the same procedure and died the next day, she says, but she made it with her spirit intact. A few weeks later, her big sister was sneaking boxed wine into her "sterile" environment.

By January 2006, she had made a remarkable recovery, celebrating the new year by skiing deep powder at Monarch Doctors marveled at her resiliency. And then the other shoe dropped.

She was driving her truck home a few days after that ski trip when she had a seizure that resulted in a rollover crash. Doctors found a tumor in her brain that caused the seizure. It turned out to be a second form of cancer, astrocytoma, that appears to be unrelated to the first.

"It's like getting hit by lightning twice," said Rob Ross, her husband of 32 years.

Last fall, doctors found a second mass in her brain. When it comes down to it, she's not sure she wants to endure another transplant.

"They're only giving me a year, even with the transplant," she says. "And I don't want to die in pieces. I have a DNR (do not resuscitate order) and I'm serious about it."

New resolve

Confronted with her own mortality, Crossey-Ross decided that instead of hiding she would face her future head-on.

Isolated from her students (and most other people) as she recovered from surgeries, Crossey-Ross began to teach Jesse James to be a therapy dog.

He's the first dog she's owned. She didn't even like dogs. But she found the pup on her brother's ranch and something in his eyes spoke to her.

She soon discovered that Jesse James was a fast learner and a gentle spirit. He easily qualified as a Delta Society therapy dog, trained and licensed to help care for people.

Next, she called Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care and began visiting people with Jesse James - long-term care patients, as well as children who have lost a loved one.

"They're like Frick and Frack," said Fran Roberts, bereavement manager at Pikes Peak Hospice. "He is with her everywhere she goes. He comes here, not on a leash, and doesn't leave her side."

Jesse James is gentle and patient, heeling beside wheelchairs to be petted, barely making a sound even when they accidentally run over his paw with a wheel.

"The kids lay on his back, touch his paws - he doesn't even move. So tolerant, so patient." Roberts says. "And if it's true that your dog reflects your personality, that says a lot about Patty."

Roberts said Crossey-Ross is the first person she's seen serving others this way while she fights cancer herself.

"Patty's a pretty remarkable person. It's not for everyone, but I think it is life-giving for her," she said. "I think Patty would decline much more quickly if she didn't have people to be with who she can serve."

Crossey-Ross says she gets as much out of it as the people she visits. "Visiting is extremely inspirational for me. It makes me less scared of dying," she says.

People depend on her and Jesse James. She refuses to let them down.

"Sometimes I literally can't even walk downstairs. I just sit and wonder if I can do anything," she says. "But it makes it a lot easier to get out of bed when someone is waiting for you."

Small pleasures

Crossey-Ross and Jesse James leave Wayne Armstrong with the promise that they'll return next week, if they can.

As they tour the halls of the nursing home, a cavalcade of wheelchairs gathers around them. It's the dog they want.

"Oh man, what a pretty dog," one man says of the border collie-Australian shepherd mix.

"You're soft and delicious," a woman says as she feels his fur.

Nursing home resident Charles Robinson finds a green Nerf ball in his room and tosses it for Jesse James to chase, laughing as his paws scrabble comically on the polished floor.

"I sure miss dogs," he says. "Goodbye, Jesse James. Come back and we'll play ball."

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Call Reed at 636-0226.

DETAILS

Read more about Patty Crossey-Ross on her blog at pattyross.org.