Socks again!

When I got to work Wednesday, I was disappointed the surgery that was scheduled had cancelled. It really isn't a good idea to feed your pet the morning of surgery. I thought it would be a long morning of paperwork until we got the call. One of my client's dogs had a habit of eating socks and they saw Sebastian eat one the night before. When they woke up, he was vomiting and refused to eat breakfast. For Sebastian, it was a huge flag.

When they carried him in (usually he bounced in) my heart sunk a little bit. We took a radiograph and there was the bloody sock. Plus, the gas pattern confirmed it was stuck. As I went to tell the owners, my staff prepped him for surgery.

My AHT, Kelly, scrubbed in to help me. Those are her hands on the right waiting to hold the jejunum for me. I've labeled the picture. The very thick section of the intestine contains the sock. Through the incision, I also pulled out a bunch of grass coming out in advance of the sock. Once the sock was out, the peristalsis began (this is a huge relief as it indicates the intestines are working). The contractions were hitting Kelly's hand as she held off the intestines. It was the most beautiful wave of contraction once we had finally closed the incision and tested it with saline. I will neither deny nor confirm that a cheer may have resounded throughout the hospital at that time.

Sebastian's recovery was pretty routine. I kept him for the night so I could monitor him for any problems. The only problems I discovered were trying to get him to walk across the parking lot to the grass instead of running and he found ANOTHER sock on the way back to the building. How do you loose a sock???? Luckily, I saw it a fraction of a second before he could sniff at it. I'm glad I have good reflexes!!!

A dog named Zipper

Well, this past week, they came by two again. This is a little story about a dog that I shall call Zipper. Over the years he has made a habit of eating things that aren't exactly what you would describe as edible. Last year I had to do an emergency exploratory to remove material that had become stuck. One incision was made into his stomach and two into his intestines.

His owners knew something was up when he started to vomit and wouldn't eat. He is a really great dog to work with but there are times when you just shake your head when you see his name on the appointment book. We were pretty busy with multiple surgeries so the girls had him dropped off with automatic radiographs.

When I got out of surgery the radiograph was ready for me. There it was, the classic pattern for a foreign body. All the gas built up in the intestines as well as an incredible amount of gas in the stomach. You can see the arrow where the foreign body was stuck. It was in the large colon so we proceeded with a few enemas. When that didn't produce the foreign body, we sedated him and were able to pull out a small grey sock with pink trim.

We were elated until we did a follow up radiograph just to make sure there wasn't anything else left lurking in his intestines. Now that the gas was moving, it showed up. Another one!!!! He got to stay the night for more enemas. We were so happy when the other one was produced. The daughter did not want the pair back.

Oh yeah, why I call him Zipper. It would be nice to just be able to open his stomach with a zipper to see what he's eaten this time.

Something so small

A patient was brought in who had a mass on his lower left lip. It had occurred after spending a weekend at the cabin. The swelling had become the size of two large grapes. They had not seen any change in size in a week.

It was fairly easy to see the mass from the outside of the mouth but when the lip was pulled back, you could see the mass and the “weak” spot. He wasn’t thrilled with me doing the examination so we elected to sedate.

When I incised the weak spot, out came some purulent material leaving a pocket. The next step was to flush the area. That’s when it came out. As you can see from the smaller picture it was a grass awn. He was sent home with some antibiotics and within a week, you couldn’t tell he’d had anything there.

Case number three

Although I know it is a coincidence, it always feels like cases come to me in threes. I wasn’t even expecting it when I initially entered the room to yet another goofy retriever on Friday. (Bailey’s owners are going to need to enter my support group as well.) He bounced around as usual during the physical.

I had a radiograph taken because I was concerned about his esophagus. How his owner described his retching sounded like I needed to rule out megaesophagus (big and floppy esophagus). What none of us expected was to see a stone in his stomach. I asked for a lateral view to be taken of the abdomen. Feel free to count the stones.

Luckily the stones were small enough to induce vomiting. We figured they would “fly” out. The amount of hay was unexpected! There were a few almonds and quite a few leaves. After a while it started to smell like silage in the treatment room. I kind of felt like a CSI agent when the yellow thing came out and discovered it was a fourth place ribbon.

After the third application of apo-morphine (this is not the fun kind of morphine – we only use it to cause vomiting), four stones plunked on the blanket. The repeat radiograph showed the stomach was much less distended and the stones would be able to pass on their own.

Some days all I can do is shake my head!

Case number two

My patient, Mack is a goofy teenage dog whose owners are getting a little frustrated. Sometimes I feel like I should run a support group for those of us who own teenage dogs. They do the darndest things.

Since Sunday, he just hadn’t been himself. As he liked to chew, we decided to do a radiograph. The gas pattern we found indicated a stuck foreign body. So, for a second day in a row, we performed emergency surgery.

What I didn’t expect was to have to make three separate incisions. One into the stomach where I found plastic and “stuff” in the pyloric sphincter. One in the duodenum and the other in the jejunum. The ones in the small intestines looked like little aliens trying to break out.

When the owners came to visit Mack after surgery, they recognized the plastic as the bottle of ear medication he’d eaten recently. Who bloody eats ear medication?