As a writer, I feel it is mportant to try to educate Dane owners about any medical conditions or other threats that may affect our beloved Danes (or dogs in general). As with bloat, the more we know, the better our chance of saving lives.

When Jennifer contacted me back in September and told me Roms' story, I was saddened and dismayed. I felt that more people should know about a problem as insidious and disturbing as Thrombocytopenia. Jennifer was kind enough to send me Roms' story so that I might tell it to you. Please read this with an open mind, and with the thought that this is an act of love on Jennifers part, to say goodbye to Rom, and perhaps to help other dogs in his memory.
Lyn Richards

It began on January 13, 1997 (well, it actually started a few weeks before that, but we didn't realize it at the time).  I was lying on the couch trying to follow doctor's  orders so he didn't hospitalize me for the pneumonia I was in the middle of having.  Romulus came up to me to be petted.  I scratched the top of his head, then noticed something very disturbing about his right eye: it looked like it had exploded from the inside.  There wasn't blood coming out of it, but his whole eye was just a pool of blood under the surface - I couldn't see his pupil or anything.  I called Sarah (my best friend, who is a vet in Washington) for advice, and she said I should probably take him to the Emergency Clinic because if they were going to be able to save his eye, the sooner the better.  I wasn't too worried because he seemed to feel fine.  I loaded him into the car and my husband and I drove him to the clinic.  Luckily, they weren't very busy that night and Dr. Schawel was able to see us shortly after we arrived.

For a while, he couldn't figure out what was wrong with Rom's eye.  He kept saying that there should be some other obvious trauma for his eye to be hemorrhaging like it was.  I suddenly remembered something that had been happening with Rom for a couple of weeks, but that never seemed to be a big deal.  I mentioned it but didn't think that it was related to anything.  Rom had been getting a faint rash on his stomach that would come and go.  It looked to me like he had just been laying in something that he was slightly allergic to, and I was treating it with hydrocortisone cream.  I showed the rash to Dr. Schawel, who said, "Oh no."  He pulled back Rom's lips and saw what he was afraid to see - there were tiny purple sores all over the insides of his cheeks and gums.  He immediately ordered some tests, then disappeared for a while.  He came back looking very serious and informed us Rom had Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia (ITP).

From what I've learned over the past eight months, ITP is a relatively rare condition where the body does not produce enough platelets in the blood.  Platelets are what make blood clot.  The platelet count in a normal dog should be between 200,000 - 300,000. Rom's count that night was 3,500.  The biggest immediate concern was that Rom would  start bleeding internally and his body wouldn't be able to stop because his blood couldn't clot.  Dr. Schawel kept him overnight and promised to call if there were any
changes.  As we were leaving he said, "I'm really worried about this guy.  This is a real touch-and-go situation.  We're lucky we caught this when we did, but I'd give him about a 50/50 chance right now."  Bryan and I went home in complete shock.  I couldn't understand how Rom, my sweet and wonderful companion, could suddenly have only a 50% of making it through the night.  He never even seemed sick - the only reason we even went to the clinic was because of his eye.  The most we expected to hear was that he would need surgery to save the vision in that eye.  Nothing as dramatic as "this is a real
touch-and-go situation."

"Stiegerhill's Romulus" came into our lives in March of 1993.  He was 2½ years old when we brought him home: the breeders' pick of the litter as a puppy, destined to be the next champion of all champions, super wonder-Dane.  Someone forgot to tell him that though, because he HATED the show ring.  He thought anything in the world was better than walking in circles with a bunch of other dogs, and he made his point by lunging at the other dogs and trying to start fights, lying on his back with all four feet up in the air in the middle of shows, and in true "show-stopping" fashion, tried to mount the judge on more than one occasion.  Even now, he's notorious among some breeders and handlers.  Janis and John (the breeders) had finally given up on his show career and were just going to keep him as a pet.  They had tried to give him to one person who kept him locked in the garage all the time, then finally returned him because he was starting to get destructive (gee - I wonder why).  We had gotten our first Dane, Scarlet, from them a few years before.  Scarlet was a retired breeding dog, who just needed a good home, which we gave her.  After she died, I decided I didn't want another dog, because even though she was supposed to be Bryan's dog, it seemed like I did all the work (even before we were married).  Also, my allergies had been bothering me, so I told Bryan that we weren't getting another dog.  Eventually, I felt guilty because Bryan loves dogs and really missed the companionship Scarlet provided, so I called Janis to find out about another dog.  I didn't want a puppy, and I was hoping she would have another adult dog that they wanted to place, like Scarlet.

I found out that they had tried to place Rom once before, and I asked for him.  They were very worried Rom would be too much for us to handle (especially after Scarlet, the world's mellowest dog), but they said we could come walk him around the park, then if that worked, we could take him home for the weekend the next weekend, then if that worked, we could go from there.  After an uneventful walk through the neighborhood park, Janis and John sent us home to think about it before we made any decisions.  Their biggest fear was that nobody would understand him, but they also knew he'd really be better off in a one-dog home.  At that time, they had four other intact males that Rom had tried to fight with more than once, including their two champions.  Bryan and I didn't really have anything to discuss, because we had already decided we would take him if they would let us.  The next Friday, I went to pick him up by myself because I only worked until 3:30 on Fridays.  I don't know if it was that first car trip, or if Rom knew I never really wanted a dog and figured he'd better suck up to me, or something entirely different, but from the very first day, Rom was always MY dog, in both my mind and his.  He followed me everywhere around the house all the time, and liked nothing better than to lay on the couch with me with his head in my lap.  Not that he was perfect, because he wasn't, but he was a great
dog and I know I'll never get over him.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Back to Thrombocytopenia.  It's a relatively rare disease that, like in Rom's case, usually has an unknown cause.  When their platelet count plunges like Rom's did, the main focus is to get the count back up to an acceptable level.  The spleen can sometimes hold onto platelets, so the first thing Dr. Schawel did for Rom that first night at the emergency clinic was give him a shot of Vencrystine, which causes the spleen to release any platelets it's holding.  [Some dogs
with ITP eventually have their spleen removed, although we never got to that point with Rom.]  Rom was also put on Cytoxin, which is a drug they use on humans with cancer, and Prednisone, a steroid that's used for many different things, but in this case it was to help stimulate his platelet production.

He spent the night at the emergency clinic, then I picked him up the next morning and took him to our vet for the day.  They ran some more tests, put him on an iv, and pumped him full of Prednisone.  That began our daily visits to vet for a check of his platelet count.  We got to be very well know at the vet.

The huge doses of Prednisone caused him to retain a bunch of fluids and gain lots of weight (he ballooned up to 220 pounds!).  Rom was depressed all the time and also got really weak and had trouble getting around.  The vet assured me it was due to the Pred and that it would improve once his platelet count went up and we could cut the Pred dosage down.

Another side effect of the Prednisone is he leaked urine everywhere.  His blankets were soaked every morning.  Luckily, he was really good about napping on towels and blankets, so we put a plastic tarp down and put his blankets on top of it to save our carpet.

Eventually, after a couple of months and several thousand dollars, his platelet count stabilized at a low-normal level and we were able to start cutting back on his Pred. Once we got some of that out of his system, he started to feel better.  He was able to move around a bit more and perked up a lot.  I was so happy I cried when, in the middle of March, he started to wag his tail again.

Around that time, I switched vets to Dr. Lori Hageman.  I had known her a little bit in college and found out she was working at a clinic nearby.

Rom continued to improve and was enjoying spring.  He was never the same, but I used to joke that he was finally the dog I had always wanted - still Rom, but much more laid back.  I could put him in a down-stay in the front yard and know he'd still be there later (which would never have happened six months earlier).  We live on a very quiet court, with only six houses, and he was the neighborhood dog.  Everybody loved him.  He still had a little bit of trouble getting up, but I could take him on really short walks and he seemed to feel a lot better.  He even ran around the yard with our other dog (his
daughter, Albie) sometimes, although never like before.  Things were looking very good.

Then on June 3, 1997 I was rubbing Rom's tummy and noticed what I had hoped to never see again - purple bruise-like splotches all over his stomach.  I immediately took him to the emergency clinic and they confirmed that his count had dropped down to 35,000.  The emergency clinic vet advised upping his dose of Prednisone to about 20 times what he was currently taking, and sent him home for the night.  The next day, I dropped him off at Lori's clinic.  She explained that it's much harder to get them into remission a second time and they don't usually have as much luck using the same drugs as before.  Lori gave him another shot of Vencrystine anyway and tried him on a different drug called Imuran.  It was obvious Rom didn't feel great, but he didn't seem to be feeling too terrible.

On the evening of June 10 (the day after Albie had a litter of puppies - Rom's first and only grandchildren), I called for Rom to come in for the night.  He had been outside for several hours and didn't come when I called.  I went out to the "doghouse" (our backyard has a 12 x 20 foot workshop with lights, carpet and insulation that we converted into a dog house) to look for him.  He was lying on the couch out there, but wouldn't get up when I tried to coax him out.  My husband came out and pushed him up so he was standing, but Rom just fell over when Bryan let go.  It was around this point I started to get really worried.  Between Bryan, me and two of our neighbors, we managed to get Rom onto a chaise lounge and load him into our pickup truck.  I sat in the back with him on the way to the emergency clinic.  We had called ahead and they were waiting outside with a gurney when we arrived.  They wheeled him into the back, where they had already set up some blankets in the middle of the room so he was easy for everyone to keep an eye on. Dr. Schawel's diagnosis was septic shock and the prognosis wasn't good.

Apparently, Romulus had had some kind of reaction to the Imuran, so although his platelet count was
looking good, his white blood cell count was almost non-existent.  With no white blood cells, he had contracted a mild bacterial infection that his body couldn't fight.  His temperature was almost 106o when we dropped him off at the emergency clinic.

They didn't expect him to live through the night, but somehow he pulled through.  I picked him up the next morning and drove him directly to Lori's for the day.  He was hooked up to an iv for the day and put on antibiotics.  Lori and I are friends, and she felt he would be most comfortable spending the evenings at home, so that night when I picked up Rom, she followed me home with his iv pole, monitor and a car full of iv fluid bags.  She set Rom up in the corner of the family room.  We got a crash course in how to change iv fluid and what the various alarms on the monitor signified, as well as a huge list of what medications to administer and when.  That was a very long evening.  I took him back to Lori's on my way to work the next morning and our routine had been established.  He spent the days with Lori and the evenings in the corner of the family room.

It seemed like Rom was feeling a tiny bit better, but not much.  He started eating again after a few days.  Still, things were beginning to look hopeful.  Lori began talking about writing an article for a veterinary journal since most dogs don't survive septic shock.

On the evening of June 24, Rom eagerly ate the chicken I cooked for him for dinner, then settled down for the night.  He had begun to choose to sleep outside because it was too hard for him to go up and down the three steps leading to our house from the yard.  When he slept in the house, he had to wake me up to go outside several times a night.  Most of the time, after I let him out the first time, we would just make himself comfortable in his bed on the patio.  I would leave the door open for him, but he usually spent the night outside.  It was warm enough outside for him, and I think he preferred to sleep away from Albie's squawking new puppies.  I got up and checked on him about 3:30 in the morning: he was awake and chewing on a bone.  I sat out on the patio with him for a few minutes, then went back to bed.

The next morning I got up around 6:00 and went out to see Rom.  Unfortunately, sometime between 3:30 and 6:00, Rom had died.  He was lying in the same place he had been when I checked on him earlier, so I'm hoping he just went to sleep for one last time.  I was right on the other side of the sliding glass door and I never heard anything, so hopefully it was quick and painless.  I decided not to have an autopsy done - nothing was going to bring him back, and I didn't want to know if I should have done something
differently.

I'll miss Romulus forever, but it's been a little over two months and it's not as painful to think about him as it used to be.  Before he died, Rom had shown some interest in one of Albie's puppies, so we picked her to keep out of the litter (Rom has good taste in puppies - she was the one we would have picked without his help).  The puppy's official name is California Belle of Romulus - Callie for short.  She's three months old today, and lots of fun.  We had been kind of disappointed Albie's litter had all girls, because we really wanted a male puppy in honor of Rom.  So, in a moment of "weakness" we acquired Chase, a year-and-a-half old Harle who was a show prospect as a puppy but didn't mature with quite the correct confirmation.  He's a great dog and a bundle of energy (he kind of reminds me of Rom in his younger years).

Romulus will always have a special place in my heart.  It always seemed like he knew what I was thinking and he was always there for me.  I'll never regret spending all the money we spent trying to save him - he was worth every penny.  I wish things had turned out differently, but I feel honored to have shared four years of Rom's life with him.

Jennifer Saulsbury, 9/97                                        Lyn Richards/ Doglogic.com
1421 Mohr Court                                                    3020 Brown Ave #10
Concord, CA  94518                                             Manchester, NH 03103
(510) 681-0648                                                      603-668-8157

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