"Group Think"– could you be a victim?
Last December our old dog turned 13. She has had a good life, despite an assortment of various unusual accidents. Earlier in the prior spring we got a couple puppies, this caused our old dog's mothering instinct to kick in and she started lactating. Hard marble size lumps developed under one of her tits and I assumed that it was just impacted milk. The vet's diagnosis was not as benign...."cancer." Liver tests weren't conclusive, and they left us with the decision of having them removed or not. The tone of the conversation was that she is an old dog (how long can you expect her to live?), and they don't recover from surgery very fast (she is an old dog and you're going to make her final days miserable trying to recover from surgery), leaving us with the impression that we might leave the cancer alone and see how it goes for a while. Time passed and the tumors never changed in size.
We returned after a weeklong trip the end of January to find the old girl hadn't been eating. We hand fed her and struggled for a couple weeks to put weight on her. Jennifer talked to the vet, and based on our description of her symptoms it appeared the cancer was overwhelming her, painkillers did seem to improve her mood. Her weight continued to slip away, and we babied her with special diets to no avail. I was having more and more trouble resolving her plight in my own mind, yet the consensus was that she was old and it was her time. It was a deathwatch.
One evening Jennifer was palpating her extended gut, which must have broke something loose and by the next morning she was excreting mucus. This seemed out of character for what we were thinking was causing her demise, so we immediately took her to the vet.
It turned out she had a raging infection and quick surgery removed the infection as well as the mammary tumors. Her recovery was quick and within a couple weeks she has put on weight and even began playing with the puppies.
So how could two highly educated people be so misled? With our backgrounds and knowledge of dogs and medicine, I have to conclude we were a product of "group think." With input from vets, we led ourselves down the path, and supported each other when one or the other wondered off the line of thought. So convinced that she was an old dog dieing of cancer, and there was little we could do but try to keep her comfortable till the end, we failed to question the disease until faced with indisputable evidence to the contrary.
In my reading around the SI family of threads I've noticed groups of people unknowingly propping each up in positions that may not be in their best interest. They get stuck in "group think" until, and often despite of, indisputable evidence to the contrary. And, many of the "portfolio death watches" I've seen have come to bitter sad, yet unnecessary, end.
Sam |
