Hugo and the Impossible Thing
Our story begins with a terrible phone call. A call we would never want anyone to receive. The voice on the other end was lukewarm at best, clinical. “Hugo has an inoperable brain tumor. I’m sorry. There is nothing we can do.”
“Inoperable”, “nothing we can do”. It all sounded so permanent. So hopeless. Was there really nothing that we could do? We just didn’t believe that could be true. And it turned out that it wasn’t.
Before we dive into the story, we should take the time to say that Hugo was our child. We know not everyone understands this idea but please believe us when we say, he was our child and we were his parents. The neural pathways were carved in our brains, the connections were forged in our collective souls, we imprinted on him and he on us.
And so it was.
After getting that terrible call, the call we would never want anyone to get, we flipped into hyper mode. Well, if we’re being honest, first, we cried. A lot. It was a bottomless cry. A cry neither of us had ever cried before. Then the anguish morphed into a fevered rage, a ‘burn it down, scorch the earth we stand on’ kind of rage. And then we flipped into hyper mode. We rejected the finite answers. We sought alternative solutions. We chose hope and we clung to it fiercely. Tirelessly. That’s not to say it was easy. It wasn’t. Optimism is hard work. Fortunately, we had each other to lean on. Strangely enough, we seemed to steady each other through it all. At times, it was as if we sat on opposite ends of an emotional seesaw. When one of us found ourselves in sinking despair, the other would shoulder the hope until we could both share it again.
Our gutsy fight was inspired by our gutsy boy. Hugo had a ‘never back down’ policy. He was a force. Tenacious, wild, beyond brave. He earned the nickname “The General” at the dog park since he never missed an opportunity to assert himself and correct his peers if they were acting a fool (a trait he either inherited from his mom or she from him). One particularly terrifying day, Hugo found himself locked onto a frisbee (his all time favorite toy) opposite a ninety pound pitbull in the middle of the crowded Brooklyn Heights dog park. For twenty minutes they stared into each other’s eyes, jaws locked, determined. There was nothing we or the pitty’s owner could do. So we sat and waited, hoping it didn’t get ugly. Eventually, the pitbull released the frisbee, laid down and showed his belly. Full submission. Hugo, the undisputed victor, then paraded that frisbee around all the canine onlookers as if he was asking, “Anyone else wanna go a round with the champ?” He wasn’t above taunting. Needless to say, there were no takers. This story has not been exaggerated. That is exactly how it went down.
Hugo was immovable, relentless, unyielding, and so he imbued that in us.
After deciding to fight Hugo’s unbeatable illness, the following ten months were the hardest time in our lives. Here’s what it looked like: Three weeks of radiation, four bouts of subsequent pneumonia, ten months of western medicine, way too much Prednisone, lots of late night emergency vet trips, Chinese herbs from an eccentric Eastern Medicine guru in New York, cannabis CBD specifically formulated for Hugo’s condition, acupuncture, Reiki, food therapy, physical therapy, including water treadmill while he couldn’t walk on his own to keep the neural pathways open for the possibility of when—when, dammit!— he would someday walk again on his own, dry brushing for his circulation, a cooling mat because his body had a hard time regulating his temperature on the steroids. We even got a dog stroller at the suggestion of our moms, Karen and Karen (yes, they’re both named Karen and no, they don’t appreciate the memes), who knew we were all in desperate need of some sunshine.
Then, one fine day, after not being able to walk on his own for eight months, we learned Hugo’s tumor was... gone. ‘No evidence of disease’ gone. Some combination of all the modalities we had employed over the past year... worked. It was incredible news. However, we weren’t out of the woods yet. For some unknown reason, Hugo still couldn’t walk. We’ll spare you the medical jargon but essentially, there were some residual effects from the inflammation caused by the now non-existent tumor. The positive news of his tumor disappearing proved that we were on the right path and so we cranked out hyper mode into overdrive and eventually discovered a procedure that could potentially bring us fully out of the woods.
Which led us to meet a rockstar veterinary neurosurgeon in Davis, California, named Bev. She was one of the few surgeons in the country skilled enough to perform this experimental procedure and the only one brave enough to try.
The day after his surgery we got a phone call from the ICU asking if we’d like to pick Hugo up early. “Well, he’s standing up in his kennel and doesn’t seem to want to lay down.” We nearly choked. “Wait, did you say he’s--standing?!” Hugo hadn’t stood on his own in the eight months since we were told he had two days to live. The stubborn little maniac was now defiantly standing in his kennel.
Hugo allowed us to witness nothing short of a miracle and went on to live two additional years after that surgery. Running, jumping, head-butting his way through life. Our clever boy even learned new tricks. He made the ultimate comeback. Hugo was, quite effectively, reborn and so were we. All because, when told that his recovery wouldn’t be possible, we, Renée, Chris and Hugo, decided to try.
After Hugo had healed, our dear friend Jamie Wozny, an incredibly intuitive Reiki healer, asked if we were writing a children’s book about Hugo. We looked at one another and said, “no, but we probably should.” She replied, “Yes, you should. Hugo wants his story to inspire others.” Good idea, bud.
And so we wrote Hugo and the Impossible Thing to encourage children and adults alike to politely ignore the naysayers and set out to conquer their own ‘impossible thing’, whatever it may be. Just like Hugo did.
Hugo and the Impossible Thing by @reneefelicesmith and @christophergabriel can be purchased here and keep up with Hugo’s adventures on Instagram here.