Bad Medicine

The phone rang early on a Saturday morning.

It was Dr. Tom.

Not the call I was expecting.

Especially early on a Saturday morning.

He informed me that he had just finished his research.

And he had some troubling news for us.

Cooper has Von Willebrand Disease.

When you get news like this.

You only hear the worst.

Except we hadn’t heard the worst.

Yet.

The doctor said that he has only seen one other patient like this in the last five years.

And that patient is now dead.

Those were his words.

Not mine.

Well maybe not the exact words.

But pretty damn close.

Dr. Tom had done surgery on Cooper a few weeks earlier.

And since that surgery, Cooper just hadn’t healed properly.

According to the doc, the fact he was still bleeding was a sure sign he had this disease I’d never heard of.

Von Willebrand disease.

It’s a bleeding disorder, according to webmd.com.

• When you have this disease, it takes longer for your blood to form clots and you bleed for a longer time than other people.

I asked if he knew about this before doing the operation.

That’s when he took off his doctor hat.

And put on his lawyer glasses.

“We did a coag test.”

“And everything was normal.”

Ok, so it was normal before you cut Cooper.

And abnormal after you cut him.

I’m no math major, but something wasn’t adding up.

The doctor apologized for not having the foresight to see this situation before doing the surgery.

The fact that he used the word “apologized”... more than once... really concerned me.

In my court of public opinion, that sounded like he was guilty.

Of what, I still wasn’t sure.

So I kept asking questions.

That’s journalism school paying off.

In the doctor’s words, “if Cooper gets a heavy laceration or gets hit by a car, he will bleed to death.”

Whoa.

I was writing as quickly as he was speaking.

Because I knew my wife would want every piece of information when she got home.

After all, Cooper is her baby.

Well her dad’s baby.

Now before you call the Maury Povich on us.

Cooper is a dog.

A purebred German Shepherd.

Born to a litter of 13 earlier this year.

A litter produced by my father-in-law.

We got Cooper as a present.

And after eight months, Cooper is 86 pounds.

And still growing.

But he is definitely a member of this family.

I have the vet bills to prove it.

A few weeks ago we listened to Bob Barker and got our new pet spayed.

Or neutered.

Or one of those.

Doctor Tom was hired to do this job.

But instead of getting fixed, something got broken.

The weird part was from the moment Cooper got home from surgery, he was himself.

Bumping into things.

Eating everything in sight.

Being a puppy.

Albeit, an 86-pound puppy.

His post-op R&R lasted about six minutes.

It wasn’t until a week later that he started dripping blood.

A slow drip.

One here.

One there.

For no apparent reason.

That’s when we got concerned.

That’s when we went back to Doctor Tom.

And that’s when he told us German Shepherds are #4 on the list of dogs most likely to get Von Willebrand’s disease.

Well that would’ve been nice to know before you cut our dog open.

But that was about all he had to add. 

So we did what everybody does in 2011 when you don’t know something.

We googled.

That’s where we found the symptoms for this Von Willebrand disease:

• Recurrent and prolonged nosebleeds
• Bleeding from the gums
• Blood in the stool or urine
• Excessive bleeding from a cut

Um -- no, no and no.

Bleeding?  Sorta.

Excessive?   Not a chance.

Yet another part of this formula that didn’t add up.

Over the next few weeks, we kept a close eye on Cooper.

And day-by-day, we saw... nothing.

No more blood.

From the nose.

From the gums.

From the wherever.

Well it turns out Cooper’s bleeding was a serious case of ... not resting and relaxing after getting fixed.

That’s it.

I’m not sure where this “Doctor” did all his research.

I’m not even sure where he got his license.

Costco?

But the bottom line is Cooper is fine.

And back to destroying our back yard.

Which is exactly what an 86-pound puppy should be doing.