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THE MERLE AND SHIRLEY HARRIS
BIRTHING CENTER AT
HURON VALLEY-SINAI HOSPITAL

• Beautiful, all private birthing suites, for labor, delivery,
recovery and postpartum (LDRP) care
•Anesthesiologists available 24 hours a day
•Complete-care nursery including full-time neonatology
service for infants with special needs
• High-risk pregnancy, infertility and genetics services*

S brighten outlook
for cancer patients.

Dr. Leo and Mira Eisenberg with Bruno

George Cantor
Special to the Jewish News

0

EXPECT THE BEST — To schedule a tour of the Merle and
Shirley Harris Birthing Center at Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital, call
(248) 937 5120. To schedule an appointment with one of our
physicians, call (888) DMC-2500.

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Hospital

*All in conjunction with Hutzel Women's Hospital.

1 William Carls Drive • Commerce, Michigan
248-937-3300 • www.hvsh.org
At Commerce & Commerce in Commerce

26 June 28 • 2007

ne of the most frightening
words in the English lan-
guage is chemotherapy.
It means, more than likely, that
something is seriously wrong and the
patient must undergo treatment that
can be grueling. It also means long,
tedious hours in a chair at a doctor's
office or hospital room with an IV
plugged into a vein. The boredom is
almost as strong as the sense of fear.
And then Bruno comes bounding
into the room.
He is a Portuguese water dog; and
for patients of Dr. Leo Eisenberg,
a physician who sees many cancer
patients, Bruno is therapy. He has
become a familiar and comforting
sight, both at the doctor's office and on
his hospital rounds.
Bruno is as welcome as one of those
St. Bernards who rescue stranded ski-
ers with a keg of brandy around their

necks because these are people who
often feel stranded, too, on an isolated
island in their minds.
"We have patients tell us over and
over again that when they see Bruno
it takes their minds off what they are
going through:' says Mira Eisenberg,
who runs her husband's Novi clinic,
DNS Hematology/Oncology.
"Bruno doesn't ask them questions.
`How are you feeling? Will your hair
grow back?' He simply is their uncon-
ditional friend."
"When you talk to him, he is there
to listen:' wrote Maria Feherpataky, in
a letter to Dr. Eisenberg. "Bruno could
not be more comforting."
The dog was a gift to the Eisenbergs
from their children, replacing a pet
that had died. "I grew up on a farm in
Israel," says Mrs. Eisenberg, "and I'm
used to having animals around all the
time. But we could see that Bruno was
something special."
The problem at the Eisenberg home
was that Portuguese water dogs don't