Really, you're suprised?

So I'm working at one of our smaller vet clinics today - myself and one other Doc. This morning, I noticed that she had a patient with an ear hematoma - basically, the pet's ear infection was bad, the dog was shaking her head constantly & broke blood vessels in the ear flap so the space between the skin and the cartilage filled with blood. Its a common thing in dogs, and looks rather funny - as if someone blew the dog's ear up like a balloon! So, if the hematoma is small, we can drain it, give meds for the ear, and it will likely resolve. But, if the blood fills the whole ear flap, it often needs a surgical repair... So Molly's owner had dealt with this once in the past - years ago. The issue was small then, and draining the ear worked - today, however, the entire ear was involved. Despite my colleague's advice (and warning that there was a 95-100% chance the hematoma would not resolve, given its size), Molly's owner decided to take her chances... so, the hematoma was drained, the ear was wrapped securely to the head with a bandage, and an Ecollar ("lampshade") was applied to keep Molly from tearing the bandage off.

Fastforward a few hours... the woman calls back, saying the ear is all filled up with blood again. By this time the other doctor had gone home for the day... so it became my problem. I'm thinking to myself 'HOW did that dog get the Ecollar AND the bandage off?!?' Should've known. Stupidity at work again... Molly's owner says "Well, she couldn't stick her head past the end of that thing, and she hated it - so I trimmed it off to make it quite a bit shorter. That way she could see and it didn't bother her. She still had it on when she got the bandage off. I just don't think those things work well at ALL. Is there something else we can do?"

Really?!? I don't know if I'm surprised more by her comment / action, or by the fact that it surprises me. I really shouldn't be surprised anymore. Common sense is CERTAINLY not common...

So, we scheduled a recheck appointment for tomorrow, to replace the bandage and get a new Ecollar - and told her now we'll need to do surgery next week. Ok she says... "But do I have to pay for the new Ecollar? And can we just take all the money I spent today and deduct it from the cost of the surgery?" Uuummmmm..... NO. We recommended surgery in the first place. YOU decided not to take our advice. YOU cut up the first Ecollar. *sigh* I'm glad the day is almost over.