Shaker

In January of 2009 at 11 – months old, Charlie came into rescue as a typical barking, drooling, counter-surfing puppy who was not housebroken and who had very little training. He was adopted and renamed Shaker and his whole new life began. Here is a story about Shaker and his owner that shows the devotion and loyalty and, frankly, the uncanny ability of some dogs to recognize life and death situations.

This story is told by Shaker’s owner…

This particular story starts in September 2009. I had torn a ligament and tendon in my ankle and was treated conservatively, which failed to relieve the chronic pain after 4 months. In January, it was determined that I needed surgery, but that was also about the same time my wife broke her wrist when she was knocked down by a group of playing dogs at the dog park. So my surgery was delayed.

I finally had surgery on April 5th and was in a splint for 2 weeks, followed by a cast for a month. The cast was removed on May 20th, and I went back to a support boot and crutches. On Monday May 24th, I had my first full work day of just using the crutches and the boot, and I started having some chest pains near the end of the day. By the time I got home at about 8:30, I was exhausted and it was all I could do to get from the car to my bed. By around 1 AM the pain was a little worse, my pulse was rapid and I was having some shortness of breath. At this point, I couldn’t sleep and was lying there debating upon if I should wait until morning, or go into the emergency room right then. That was when the oddest thing happened. Shaker got up on the bed, which is not usual for him. He very rarely gets on the bed, and if he ever does, he strictly lies at the foot of the bed. But this night, he walked right up and over my wife and laid his head on my chest. Then he would not move from that spot no matter what we did or said. Now, I have heard many stories of dogs doing amazing things, and have even had clients whose dogs were able to detect oncoming seizures, hypoglycemia, cancer, etc., so I took this as a sign. I woke my wife up, we put the kids in the car, and she drove me to the emergency room.

Apparently, during the time that I had the cast in place, I was forming blood clots in my leg. When the cast was off and I had more movement of my leg, the clots started breaking free and were moving into my lungs. On that first full day of work, a large clot broke off and went to my lungs. When the doctor did the CT scan, he found numerous clots throughout my lungs, as well as something called a saddle thrombus in both lungs. In order to understand what was going on, a small anatomy lesson is in order. Basically, when the large pulmonary artery leaves the heart to go to the lungs, it splits into 2 parts, one going to the right lung, and another going to the left. Each of those in turn splits into 2 smaller vessels that go to the top part of the lung and the bottom part of the lung, and then to smaller vessels, etc. There was a large clot in the vessel that splits into the top and bottom part of the lung on both sides. Therefore, the clots were blocking a large portion of the blood flow to both of my lungs. In the emergency room, they started me on IV blood thinners immediately and transferred me to ICU. I spent the next 6 days in ICU followed by 3 days in intermediate care, before being transferred to a regular hospital room. I am in that room as I am writing this, so I cannot relay how long my total hospital stay was, only that it is not yet over.

I have been seen by several specialists while here. All of the doctors just kind of shake their heads in wonderment and tell me the same story…with pulmonary emboli like I have the most common symptom that is seen is sudden death. They tell me that by all rights I shouldn’t have made it to the hospital at all. They tell me that only the fact that I came in when I did saved my life. And I tell them that the only reason that I came in when I did, rather than waiting, was the attentions of our Golden Retriever, Shaker. Shaker saved my life. Isn’t it strange how things work…as a veterinarian I spend my life saving animals’ lives, and then one of them saves mine.

I will hopefully be able to return home to my family in a few more days, and I am greatly looking forward to seeing them all, including Shaker and our other GRRSN adoptee, Rusty. I will be on blood thinners for about 6 months, and it will take a few weeks to a few months for the clots to fully dissolve. They will arrange for a home care nurse and physical therapist for a while and with luck I will be able to return to work in a few weeks….maybe sooner.