In the second episode of the Connection in Real Life series, we hear again from someone who has deep connections with their dogs – but who doesn’t?! Surprise twist though, this then directs her to a complete shift in daily life. Meet Mari Maeda, founder of Canine Cancer Alliance, who like many of us, only wanted the best care for her dogs, not realizing this love would put her on a path to revealing what I call – a new life purpose. 

Sometimes your life purpose at the moment simply means you’re using your skills for positive impact to those you love. 

We don’t get to pick and choose when we’re going to have a meaningful connection with something, no, in fact if we knew ahead of time we’d probably say, “No Way!” But that’s how life works, and if we’re open to the magic happening behind the scenes then we get to find greater satisfaction and meaning than we ever could have planned for. 

Mari’s connection with her dogs ultimately brought her to the unescapable union of career and animals: medical researcher meets canine cancer. Mari’s inspiring story helps us all think outside the box when we know there is something to be done, but no one is doing it. 

In this episode you’ll hear: 

• ~The value of combining your connections, skills, and passions into one project 
• ~A peek into the world of canine cancer research – and no, it won’t make you cry! 

About Mari: 

After losing her dogs to cancer, Mari started reaching out to cancer researchers to get them interested in helping find cures for dogs. She started a nonprofit foundation, Canine Cancer Alliance, which is supporting research studies to find more effective and affordable cancer treatments. She lives in Bellevue and Shaw Island, Washington with her husband and three rumbunctious golden retrievers, Momo, Mimi and Indy.  

5K Event link:  enddogcancer.org/love 

Organization link: https://www.ccralliance.org/ 

Welcome to the Connectedness Podcast.

Just as you might have guessed, I talk about connection in this

podcast, our connection with everything in the world around us.

We're connected, whether we see it or not.

Whether it's your connection with your dog and your cat.

Or your connection with your God.

Also, I talk about things that are more abstract, like your connections with your

career or your land, your community, your family, your emotions, your body Life

is truly all about connections, and the sooner we recognize this, the sooner we

get to have an easier, more enjoyable.

I'm gonna talk about these connections through different lenses, but things

like synchronicities and coincidences, or everyday little bits of magic or

miracles that we tend to dismiss, it's important we pay attention to

all of this to help us, like I said, live and easier, more satisfying life.

So welcome to the show.

I'm your host, Reverend Care in c.

I'm really excited about today's story and today's guest because it combines so

many aspects of the work I do with people.

But it all happened completely organically.

You know, sometimes when I work with people, they want to know how

they can move into more impactful, meaningful work, and I have an

exercise we do that's part of that.

One thing we do is we look at past jobs.

Well, not necessarily jobs, but, but tasks that they like doing.

You know, if they like working with spreadsheets or talking to

the public, answering the phone, working alone, whatever it is

that they enjoy about past jobs.

And then one other thing we look at is what is their social cause

that they're passionate about?

So, If they set out to save the world, how would they do that?

By what method or by what cause Would they save the whales or the trees or the bees?

Or women?

Children, elephants.

Dogs, Cats.

You know, what, what is their thing?

And then, you know, with, with some other insights and information,

we, we take those things, put 'em together, and find a way that they

can move forward into working.

In a way that feels easy to them, meaningful to them,

something they enjoy doing.

And today's guest, Mary Maita, did this completely organically.

She took past work experiences and knowledge, and she took unfortunate

experiences that she'd had with her dogs, but it led her to create the

Canine Cancer Alliance, which has had a huge impact on both people and

their dogs and cats and other animals.

And has led to a meaningful solution for many people.

Now, if you have any dogs or cats or pets that you feel especially close

to, I'm pretty sure that if you got a cancer diagnosis with them, you would

love to know that you had another six months or one year or six years with

them, and this might have been because of the work that Mary has been doing.

So Mary's connection with her past and her passion has created something beautiful

in the world with, with meaningful impact to very, very many people.

Without further delay, here is my conversation with Mary.

I'm really excited today to have guest Mary Maita on the show with us.

I've worked with Mary in the animal world, and I have personally seen the impact

that she's making in the lives of dogs.

Unfortunately, Mary lost her own dogs to cancer.

After that, she started reaching out to cancer researchers to to

start help find cures for dogs.

And through that she started a nonprofit foundation, the

The Canine Cancer Alliance.

So today we get to hear Mary's story and what's happened and what the future holds.

We hope so.

Welcome to the show, Mary.

Thank you so much, Karen.

Yeah.

Pleasure to be here.

Yeah, wonderful to have you.

I'm very excited to hear this story.

So I know that, you know, everything starts somewhere.

Um, you had your two dogs.

Why don't you just start telling us what happened with them and

we, we will just go from there.

Okay, thank you.

So, um, we moved to Seattle area, um, about six, seven years ago, uh,

from Washington DC and we loved it.

Um, we just loved the, the natural beauty and we brought two dogs

with us and they loved it here too.

We took them hiking and we went through those giant off-leash dog parks, and

they used to run around our two dogs.

Very active.

But one day I noticed Gus limping.

He was about seven years old.

He was just limping, just slightly, but I got worried.

So I took him to the vet and the veterinarian took x-rays and looked at

the images and said, It's probably cancer.

And when you hear that word, uh, you get.

Awful feeling.

Yeah.

You, you just go blank.

Yeah.

And it's this sort of, the pain goes through your heart and

you wait to see a specialist to confirm it, that it is cancer.

And um, it turned out GU did have bone cancer called osteosarcoma.

Mm.

And we found a, a very good oncologist in Kirkland, and he had his leg amputated.

He had chemotherapy, which is the standard care for dogs with osteosarcoma.

But the second shock was that, uh, even with the best treatments

available for dogs today, the dogs are not cured, that the chance of

cancer coming back is very, very high.

Mm.

Especially for us, just sarcoma.

Oh.

So I tried everything I could.

We tried acupuncture, Chinese medicine to see positive thinking and

prayer and everything to try to see if maybe he could beat this thing.

Around Christmas time, we went back to Washington, DC because most of our family

was still in DC So we were celebrating Christmas and our other dog, Hanukah,

she started showing signs of illness.

She was panting, uh, she would just hide in the corner by herself.

Oh.

Um, so I took her to the vet on a Christmas day.

And, um, they found cancer all over her body.

Oh my gosh.

How old was she?

Same age.

She was two years old, believe it or not.

She was only two.

Oh.

And um, my husband and I got into an argument cause the doctor was saying,

you know, she could go into shock any minute, so she needs to be put to sleep.

Oh.

My husband really wanted to take her out for the last, last hike.

We ended up doing that, which turned out to be a beautiful hike with

everybody and she, she enjoyed it.

She was sniffing around and, but we had to finally say goodbye to her

and after she was gone the next day, we went for a walk near a Potomac

River and we saw this beautiful white swan just drifting down the river.

We had been on that walk so many times, hundreds of times.

But that was the first time I saw Swan in the distance just going

by and I said, Oh my goodness.

Hunter was scared to say goodbye.

Yeah, so, So we lost ton of go.

And then Gus was with us until about a year after his diagnosis

and cancer came back spread of his lungs, and we had to let him go.

So I was very bitter and angry at the situation.

Why, why could we have done better?

And for about a year, I, I couldn't do anything, but I slowly, I started

getting back into some volunteer.

I started volunteering for an organization called The Magic Bullet Fund.

They raise funds to help families who can't afford cancer treatment

for their pets, because cancer treatments are becoming more and more

expensive, and there are people who can afford it and people who can't.

Oh, right.

And when it costs five, $10,000 or even $3,000 for surgery,

it's just out of reach.

Yeah.

So this nonprofit does a wonderful job of raising funds.

So just for, you know, an hour or two a week, I would help them process

applications and things like that, and it felt good, but at the same

time, I, I would see these dogs enroll and oftentimes they would have mass

cell tumors, osteosarcoma, lymphoma.

They would get the surgery or chemotherapy, but it gave them

extra time, but it was never a cure and cancer would come back.

And it's important to still get chemotherapy because chemotherapy is

not like human chemotherapy where you have severe side effects for animals.

Chemotherapy is very mild.

They have hardly any side effects.

When Gus had it, he just had a little bit of diarrhea for half

a day, uh, and it went away.

And it does give.

Extra time to dogs and cats, but still they couldn't, they're

not curing cancer, so, Right.

So, um, I started becoming more interested in looking to see what's happening in the

research world to see if there were any promising therapies after we lost gas.

It, it was really, really one of the most difficult things to go through

to lose our dogs, but, A week or two after he lost him, I had this

dream where he was in a dream he.

And he was standing in the water, sort of this beautiful emeral green

water and there were other dogs and um, things that looked like seals.

Just swimming around in the water was warm.

And I was actually kind of walking into the water a

little bit and it was inviting.

I felt that gust is okay.

Yeah.

That, um, he's not suffering.

He's, he's in a good place.

Yeah.

So I felt, I felt good, but also I, I still also felt very guilty

after losing them because I thought maybe I could have done more.

And Karen, I think that's when I met you when I really

wanted assurance that . Yeah.

Heco was, Okay.

So this is where it really is an intersection of your past experience

and the experience of your dogs.

So talk about a little bit.

Where you went from here.

Mm-hmm.

. So what I ended up doing was I started making appointments and

going to talk to cancer researchers.

Uh, one of the most common cancers that dogs get is, uh, sarcoma.

Sarcoma is really rare for people, but for dogs it's really common.

There are sarcoma experts here.

When I first talked to them, they're kind of wondering, Why am

I talking, why am I visiting them?

Why is she talking about dogs?

But it turns out they, they own dogs.

They just didn't know too much about dog cancer.

Right.

And after a while, they became very interested, especially since in

dogs cancer progresses so quickly compared to humans that you, you can

learn and discover much, much sooner.

You don't have to wait five to 10 years to see.

The treatment is working.

Okay.

You can find out in a year or two.

Oh.

Um, so scientists did become interested and it really helped that they're all

animal lovers too, and some of them did actually lose their dogs to cancer.

So are supporting several studies at.

Place like University of Washington and Yale University, most of them working

on new immunotherapy that hasn't been approved for humans, but we hope maybe

approved for dogs and cats before humans and really, um, Increase the

lifespan and quality life and of dogs.

Cuz you know, some dogs get cancer when they're too, and if you can cure

that cancer, they'll live until 10.

And we're not just talking about 15 year old dogs.

Right.

Young dogs.

And that's, So you started this nonprofit and you're funding

some of these studies then?

Is that right?

We are, um, supporting them and trying to get the word out

about these clinical trials, um, providing financial support to them.

There are some very, very promising treatments that are coming.

I have to emphasize that they're going to be affordable.

If it's gonna be expensive, no one's gonna use it, right?

Has to be affordable.

It's safe, and most importantly, effective.

You know, it's nice to get extra time, few months, but if we can really.

Many years.

Yeah.

That, that's the goal.

And there are some cancer immunotherapy that, uh, the scientists that we

are working with are developing.

That's, that looks very, very promising.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

And, and how do you raise funds for this?

How do you support this?

When we started doing five K, uh, annual five Ks at Mary Moore Park, and

also we invite virtual participants.

We did the first one, I think in 2018.

And, uh, we had.

Uh, lots of fresh flowers.

People make, uh, flower garlands and, uh, so that they could wear

'em and the dogs could wear them.

And we go on the walk and run and we have music and a great dj

and we really fun goofy contest.

This year we have food trucks coming and um, this year's event

is going to be at Maror Park on May 8th, which is a mother's day.

Should be really fun for all the moms and everybody.

It's an annual event.

That sounds like a spectacular thing to do.

You're, you have this fun event and you're raising money to help

lengthen the lives and the quality of life of the human dog relationship.

You know, the dogs of course get extra life, but so do the people.

They get extra time with their animals, hopefully.

Yes, that's right.

Through this process, I've met so many dog parents.

It's just a very amazing journey and amazing experience.

There's one dog here in Seattle named Scout who had the same

cancer that Gus had, osteo sarcoma.

and the cancer was starting to spread into lungs, but Scout managed to get

this new cancer vaccine part of the study that we're supporting and, and

the metastasis disappeared for him.

Oh, wow.

There's several other dogs whose.

Metastasis disappeared.

It doesn't help every dog.

And that's a thing with immunotherapy.

It helps some dogs and they live really long time.

But yeah, some dogs, the new system is maybe too damaged or

weak and they don't respond.

And so the challenge is really trying to figure out how to, how to help

more dogs respond to immunotherapy.

I think that this is all wonderful.

It's such a great, I guess, endeavor that you've started here.

But putting this all together for, for the dogs and like I

said earlier, for the people too.

Thank you for doing this From, from the animals of the world, . And

any final words you want to add?

Sometimes I talk to people and they don't quite get what we are doing.

They're saying, Why are you trying to do this?

For dogs because dogs, you know, they, their lives are social anyway, so like,

and they're getting old, so why are you just trying to extend it for a few years?

And, and I think if you are a dog or cat parent, you understand that

even getting extra six months mm-hmm.

and of course getting a cure is just means so much.

Mm-hmm.

. . And what's really also promising is that some of these studies, once they

show that it, it is helping dogs and it is helping extend their lives,

quality lives, then they can turn it into hopefully a veterinary product

so everybody could benefit from it.

But, They could also start human clinical trials and try to help people.

Nice.

Because if you show that it's working really well with canine patients and

dogs with cancer are actually living longer, then it makes it easier for the

scientists to start human clinical trials.

Oh, so that's the other good news.

So it will help people.

Wow.

That is good news.

I think the animals are worthy, so they are, Oh, absolutely.

They are with us.

Such a short time, which makes extra time even more valuable.

Right.

You know, you can extend the life.

20% or 50% are.

A hundred percent, whatever it is, the time that we have with them, because

as you know, we, many people have such deep connections with our animals.

Mm-hmm.

, and I'm not gonna get into all the reasons, all the science and,

uh, emotional reasons behind that, but we so many people have deeper

relationships with their animals than they do with other people.

So, uh, it's very important for a lot of people.

Yes.

And I'm a hundred percent with you, . Yeah.

Well thank you very much Mary.

So I wish you luck.

I wish I was joining you this year on the, um, at the event, but at

a future year again, hopefully.

And so good luck and we will talk to you soon.

Yeah, thank you.

And, and, um, if you wanna learn more, um, if you go to end dog cancer.org.

If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to head over to rev karen podcast.com.

That's R E V K A R E N podcast.com.

There you're gonna find the tools for finding more meaning

and happiness in your own life.

Plus, if you have a story that you want to share with me, either on or

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