Bias –

is a partiality that prevents objective consideration

Bias –

suggests a fixed conception likely to preclude objective judgement of anything counter

Bias –

is a preconceived opinion, whether personal or professional

Bias –

eliminates the possibilities for new information or revelations to be known

Bias –

in other words, is one-way information

Bias –

is taking an entire history and choosing one thing out of context

Bias –

is contrary to good science

Bias –

precludes professional curiosity

Bias –

destroys trust

Bias –

stops the exchange of ideas and healthy communication

Once you accept bias information as fact, you lock in a need that someone else has for you to believe what they need you to believe. This is referred to as seeding, seeding a thought, an idea, a diagnosis, a position, a something that is now rattling around in your thoughts, whether it has truth or not. Please pause on that for a moment.

If the information you are receiving does not feel right, it isn’t. It is important to listen to information but to use all three brains – logical, emotional, and instinctual.

You not only have the right, but it is your responsibility to be skeptical, especially when standing in the middle of bias information. Skepticism forces you to research, ask questions, analyze, reach out, and ultimately seek the truth. Perhaps skepticism is a natural byproduct of being an open-minded individual, and simple wanting to know.

RHUMB

Lower Motor Neuron Events, the specific one causing the paralysis, are hard to diagnose in the clinic during the event, so it is a process of elimination, and hopefully with a thorough history, clues, pieces of the puzzle, a professional and unbiased diagnosis can be made.

When the easiest ones where checked/tested for and they came back as not that one, and Rhumb was still rapidly declining, there was a Grand Canyon size leap of a diagnosis of certainty, which changed four times by the way, and this pattern continued through three veterinaries and the pathologist.

I want to be very clear here so there is no misunderstanding, I don’t believe there was any wrong doing with the medical care she received on the day she died. With the exception on one person, everyone was very kind to us, and I believe could feel the depths of my shock and grief. I think whatever was happening to Rhumb was intended to kill her. It was in the aftermath, as in minutes after she was dead that things began to turn. There was such certainty (wrong by the way) from the specialist that he felt comfortable with making damning accusations, damaging assumptions, and using fear appeals, because of a need for me to believe what he needed me to believe.

The pathologist had such a strong bias on his preliminary report that professional curiosity stopped, and many things weren’t investigated or tested for. We did talk over the phone a couple of times, as I needed him to clarify his conclusion, and also ask him about other possibilities that had come up through my research. He did reach out to me after our conversation, he did research into the night on some of the things I had brought to his attention, and he shared more information with me that was less bias, kind of. He never received our history nor asked for it before the necropsy, which could have helped in his understanding.

The one question, amoungst hundreds I kept asking was how was it that she died and my other four dogs, two being super seniors, and our other animals were still alive and healthy, when they all shared the same space, the same food, the same everything? It was suggested that I killed her through my choices, so I stood in an uncomfortable and seemingly vulnerable place, with raw emotions, and an open mind, I wanted to know. What was the vector, the mechanism, the methodology, the modality, how, what, why, when, I had a lot of questions and I was looking for unbias answers.

We don’t know became a mantra of sorts that I kept hearing, which kept me researching and calling and asking questions over the next seven weeks.

If something does not feel right, it isn’t, so I trusted in intellectual curiosity as a driver for learning more.

Nancy

FULL SERIES