Stranger Than Fiction

True veterinary stories from the trenches

“And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true.”

Dear Readers,

The quote above comes from the 2006 meta-comedy Stranger than Fiction, where Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who suddenly begins hearing a narrator describing his life and predicting his death. This unexpected intrusion forces Crick to break free from his rigid routines and truly experience the world around him.

Like Crick's journey, medicine often presents us with narratives that defy expectation. While most of my veterinary practice involves familiar diagnoses, occasionally I encounter patients whose conditions challenge everything I know. These cases—with their close calls, unexpected recoveries, and persistent mysteries—become the stories that define a career.

When I started this newsletter, I frequently shared these medical narratives. Over time, my focus shifted toward discussing scientific research and public policy, but I've always intended to return to these clinical stories. As I travel this week, it seems the perfect opportunity to revisit these pieces from the early days of this publication, when my readership was barely a few dozen subscribers.

The cases you're about to read are true. The medical content has remained largely unchanged, other than occasional simplifications and changing some details for privacy. What makes them worth sharing isn't just their rarity, but what they reveal about medicine, animals, and our relationships with both.

I hope you enjoy them, and look forward to sharing new stories soon!

—Eric

In Back from the Dead, a seemingly hopeless case defies the odds as we searched for the cause of this rescue puppy’s critical illness:

“Lazarus had an inauspicious start to his life: As a puppy, he was rescued from a meth house in central Alabama during a police drug bust. Animal control often worked with a local veterinary clinic that pitied the poor creature and took him in.

He was emaciated, severely muscle wasted and unable to walk without assistance. Vets grade body condition score (BCS) on a scale of one to nine, with one being dangerously underweight and nine being morbidly obese. His BCS was listed as 1/9, and even that might have been generous.”

In Close Call, a routine case takes an unexpected turn, offering a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the high-stakes, time-sensitive decisions pathologists must make:

“It was around 5 pm, but there was still a stack of cases to work through. Getting a STAT while you’re trying to finish up and go home is the last thing any pathologist wants, but sometimes the situation warrants it. This sample from was a middle-aged Golden Retriever named “Max” (not his real name) coming in through oncology. Max had a prior history of multicentric large cell lymphoma that was treated with standard chemotherapy. He had responded well and gone into remission. That is, until today.

His lymph nodes were enlarged and he had a mild fever. He was lethargic and wouldn’t eat. He walked gingerly, like it hurt to be alive. The oncology team was understandably suspicious Max’s lymphoma had relapsed. If that was the case, the owners were not interested in trying a rescue protocol of more chemo or other treatments. They were ready to say goodbye and euthanize him.”

Finally, in Heavy Metal, I recount a dog whose mysterious liver failure sparked years of investigation without finding a clear answer, leaving me to grapple with the doubt and uncertainty that can plague those of us in medicine:

“The first thing they noticed was his gums had turned the color of mustard. Zip’s owners were understandably concerned and rushed him to their family vet to figure out what was wrong with their five year old Australian cattle dog. As soon as the doctor walked in the room, she saw the whites of his eyes had yellowed and knew what was wrong—this was jaundice, an uncommon exam finding, and always a sign of serious disease. Jaundice occurs when a waste product derived from hemoglobin called bilirubin builds up in the blood and discolors tissues.

Preliminary bloodwork showed Zip had severe elevations in an alphabet soup of different liver enzymes like ALT, AST, and ALP. His clotting times were off the chart... Zip’s liver was shutting down. The question was why?”