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Beloved dog helps hiker recover aneurysm, stroke

Joanie Leach and her dog Emma get some exercise in downtown Waynesville. Leach credits Akita Emma with assisting her after having an aneurysm and a stroke.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Joanie Leach and her dog Emma get some exercise in downtown Waynesville. Leach credits Akita Emma with assisting her after having an aneurysm and a stroke.

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Joanie and Ed Leach along with their Akita named Emma walk around downtown Waynesville. Joanie Leach had a life-threatening aneurysm in March 2007. During surgery, she suffered a stroke asnd nearly died. Emma helped Leach get around and back to good health.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Joanie and Ed Leach along with their Akita named Emma walk around downtown Waynesville. Joanie Leach had a life-threatening aneurysm in March 2007. During surgery, she suffered a stroke asnd nearly died. Emma helped Leach get around and back to good health.

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Staff photo by Teesha McClam Joanie Leach, her dog Emma and hiking buddy William Masterson walk the paths of Sugarcreek MetroPark.

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 7:32 PM Thursday, December 24, 2009

WAYNESVILLE — Some people find their special gift under the Christmas tree. Others pull it out of a long stocking hung from the fireplace mantle.

Ed Leach watched his come chugging steadily past the twinkling Christmas lights, wreaths and big red bows decorating the antique stores and gift shops along Main Street in Waynesville.

The woman wore a long red coat, a butterscotch-colored corduroy cap with the ear flaps down and hiking shoes. On one side she supported herself with a polished, wooden walking stick that had a white rubber tip affixed to the bottom.

On the other was a big, beautiful 5-year-old Akita with a black face, splashes of white on its chest and front legs and the most golden of reputations around this historic Warren County town.

Joanie Leach, Ed’s wife, was taking her daily walk with her dog, Emma, and the sight put an emotional hitch in her husband’s voice.

“What a tremendous gift,” Ed said quietly. “We have truly been blessed. God really smiled on me and gave her back.”

‘My head literally exploded’

It was March 28, 2007, and Joanie and Ed were hosting a dinner that night in their Waynesville home for a church group.

Ed spent the day at his job at Matrix Systems in Centerville. Joanie put together several casseroles and cleaned the house and then realized it was close to 5 p.m. and she had just enough time to take Emma for a short walk.

When matters weren’t so pressing, the pair would hike the trails at Sugarcreek MetroPark or Twin Creek or maybe walk along the water at Caesar Creek.

“I was heading up the stairs to get my shoes and two steps from the top my head literally exploded,” she said. “My first thought was that someone hit me with a board.”

The pain melted her onto the steps and finally she was able to get back down stairs and call Ed, who already was on his way home. As luck would have it, their daughter, Kim Baltzell, a critical care nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital, happened to call just to chat.

“She recognized in my voice that something was wrong,” Joanie said. “I told her I’d go to the doctor in the morning, but she said, ‘No, you need to go immediately.’ ”

Ed took her to Kettering Medical Center, where doctors discovered an aneurysm on the right side of the brain. She was moved to Miami Valley Hospital, where doctors feared the worst.

“It was an absolute miracle I’d survived to that point,” she said, “and I found out later they weren’t sure I’d be able to survive the surgery to repair it.”

Although she did pull through that operation, more trouble was ahead.

“She developed a blood clot in the carotid artery, had a stroke and it paralyzed her on one side,” Ed said. “They caught it soon enough, got a clot-buster on it and slowly she regained her feeling.

“But because of all the blood thinners she was on, she developed brain hemorrhages and finally they drilled a hole in the top of her head to drain the fluid.”

Listening to her husband now recount the ordeal, Joanie smiled: “I looked like one of the Teletubbies.”

Ed said after the other scares, he was sitting at Joanie’s hospital bedside, holding her hand, when he saw her look “go vacant.”

His eyes began to tear up as he remembered the scene: “I was looking at the scanning devices and all the waves weren’t the shapes you expected to see. I yelled, ‘Joan, breath,’ but there was nothing.

“She’d coded — she had died — and they brought the crash cart in and they made me leave.

“Right then, I was afraid I’d lost Joanie for good.”

A date to ‘The Carpetbaggers’

The two met on a blind date in 1964. Joanie had grown up in North Dayton, graduated from Northridge High and was working at the E.F. McDonald Company downtown while going to night school at Miami-Jacobs.

Ed, a Waynesville High grad going to DeVry Tech in Chicago, was home for a weekend visit. Joanie’s aunt set them up and they went to a movie at the RKO Loew’s in downtown Dayton.

“I don’t remember what we saw,” Joanie said.

“I do,’ Ed said. “The Carpetbaggers.”

“That’s right,” Joanie beamed.

She said it literally was “love at first sight” and a year later they married. They had four kids and Ed’s job with a digital equipment company took them to Massachusetts, Ann Arbor, Oklahoma and a couple of Ohio stops before Waynesville.

Joanie worked at the Der Dutchman restaurant driving its horse and buggy. Ed became an accomplished woodworker. They regularly played cards with friends and they had another Akita that died of old age. As that beloved dog’s health was fading, they bought another Akita puppy, named it Emma, and hoped it would make the transition easier.

“I’d forgotten about all the attention a puppy needs,” Ed said shaking his head. “I started thinking, ‘Is this too much now? Did we just make a mistake?’ ”

They did not.

Emma’s giving heart

Doctors brought Joanie back to life after she coded, though she would spend nearly four months in the hospital. After that, she was bedridden a few more months at home.

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