Brilliant … But Bouncy

My Dog Could Die Today.

There’s nothing like having a dog emergency to put life into perspective.

My dog had surgery. Xena has had prior surgeries, all to have bumps removed from her skin. Even as a puppy, she had bumps.

But this “bump” was actually called a tumor. It was bigger than the other bumps.

And it was bleeding. A lot.

So this surgery wasn’t just a bump removal. It was an emergency procedure.

When we took her in for surgery, the doctor sat down with me.

“I have Xena’s preliminary blood work,” she said. “And the numbers are not good. She is severely anemic, which means her platelet count is very low.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, completely lost. “What should we do?”

“The safest thing to do would be to take her to a hospital where they have the resources to do a complete blood transfusion. We don’t have the resources to do that here. A complete blood transfusion will cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. Here, we can only do the mass removal. With her platelet count as low as it is, we may not be able to stop the bleeding. But that mass has to come off.”

The doctor was telling me that my dog could die today.

I didn’t hear that. “Well, she’ll bleed to death at home if we don’t remove it,” I said. “So let’s just get it off.”

I wasn’t thinking about blood transfusions or why she would need that. I didn’t know what “platelets” were. I just wanted it all to go away so I could have my dog back again.

It wasn’t until I went home and researched that I decided to check platelet numbers. The internet said anything under 150,000 would make surgery dangerous.

So I called the vet while my dog was in surgery, and asked: “How low, exactly, is her platelet count?”

The vet secretary read from Xena’s paperwork. “Seventy-five,” she said.

I hung up and collapsed. My dog wasn’t going to survive the surgery. She didn’t have enough platelets to make her blood clot. She wasn’t going to stop bleeding.

I called my husband. I texted the boys. I put out a cry for help on Facebook.

Please pray.

And then I prayed. I alternated between denial and devastation – between organizing the cupboards and falling onto the floor sobbing. But for hours, I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Finally, the surgeon called. “Xena is out of surgery,” she said. “Everything went very well.” They stopped the bleeding. They want to give her medicine to help with the anemia. There is a long recovery period. Blah blah blah.

They stopped the bleeding.

The surgeon and the doctor were both perplexed. “She’s bleeding less than most dogs bleed in a normal surgery,” the surgeon told the doctor during the operation. “I honestly don’t know how this is happening!”

The prayers worked.

I breathed.

I called and texted. Everyone else breathed, too.

Xena came home, wrapped in a body bandage, obviously in pain. She has a long road of recovery ahead of her.

But she came home. And that, today, is all that matters.