News

So often, I call owners with bloodwork results and get to say, "Everything's normal: kidneys and liver, electrolytes and glucose, thyroid level, blood count,  heart worm test..." and they say thank you, and I say, "Hey, I love giving good news!" It's so great to be the bearer of good news, the reassurer of good health.  Fortunately, that is the case more often than not.

Other times, it's not good news.  Like when I had to call a client and tell her the lump I took off her dog was not a lipoma (a benign fatty mass) but instead something sinister, so we'd better send it off for pathology.  Then the pathology came back neurofibrosarcoma, a tumor very locally invasive (so it will probably regrow) and only 5% of cases metastasize.   But we'd better take chest X-rays before I refer her for radiation therapy.  Then on today's X-rays, there are little dots all through the chest.

I'll have a radiologist review the films next week, but meanwhile, no referral is indicated.  And this brave woman, who runs marathons and hikes the Appalachian trail, hangs her head and cries.  Then says, "This is a really bad design, these dogs that live lives so short, when there are all these ugly, evil people who live 80 years."  I can't argue with that.