Not many people get a  picture of this proud bird snuggled up next to  them.

 

 
   Freedom and  Jeff

  
   
 
  
Freedom and I have been  together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with  two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even  after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my  baby.

When Freedom came in she  could not stand. Both wings were broken, her left wing in 4  places. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the  decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vets  office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a  huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with  shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to si t and talk to  her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking  at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for  weeks.

This went on for 4-6  weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point  where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand  in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between  torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was  going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on  that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that  Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of her being  euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was  grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her dog cage;  and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She  was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a  very good day.

We knew she could never  fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used  to the glove, and then to jesses, and we started doing education  programs for schools in western Washington . We wound up in the  newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV . Miracle Pets  even did a show about us.

In the spring of 2000, I  was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is  not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8  months of chemo. Lost the hair - the whole bit. I missed a lot of  work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take  Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams  and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time  again.   

Fast  forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, I went in  for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all  gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell  transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back  Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all  the cancer was gone.