Backstory/Winston Update

From Eric, but I want everyone to know what is going on...

It is probably a good thing we didn’t head up to Chicago this week; it may also be a while until we can bring the puppies over to my father’s house–or anywhere else for that matter–to play. I say this because Winston is currently at MedVets recovering from Emergency surgery. The story is as follows:

It started Friday afternoon, as Winston suddenly began pacing back and forth and finally ended up vomiting on the couch. I was not extremely concerned until this happened another 4 times. I became more concerned when he refused to eat anything, so I took him into the vet where they took his vitals, gave him a shot of subcutaneous fluids and some anti-nausea pills.

Saturday started off about the same, refusal of eating, but seemed to progress in the fact that he would make an effort to go up our stairs to come see me. Then… he vomited upstairs in a very scary, exorcist-like manner. We took him to the vet where they, again, gave him fluids under the skin after doing an X-ray. What we discovered in the X-ray is that the roofers who fixed our condo a few weeks back had not cleaned up after themselves very well, and Winston, being a curious and voracious puppy, had managed to gobble up one of the roofing staples left behind. On the bright side however, as Dr. Underwood told us, was the fact that the staple had passed through his stomach into his lower G.I. It was also turned in a very fortuitous manner (i.e. pointy part AWAY from the rectal opening), so we were told to give it a few days to see if it would pass. Dr. Underwood also gave us some more anti-nausea medicine and a syringe with food with which to keep him fed.

Sunday seemed to be going well, as we only had 2 vomiting episodes (non-projectile this time) and he seemed to be making progress on the energy front (jumping into bed, drinking water on his own). Still wasn’t taking food without it being forced on him via syringe, but we counted our blessing and tried to focus on the positive.

Monday, things held steady. Winston still wasn’t taking food but occasionally would hop off the couch to drink some water. He also continued to climb up the stairs and hop into bed to get rest. Things took a turn for the worst around 9:15 though, when I headed downstairs to give him his hourly feeding and found him, on the bed, having a petite mal seizure (blank stare, head shaking up and down) that lasted for roughly 45 seconds to 1 min (we later learned this was brought on by hypoglycemia from lack of food). I called Rori, who was at a meeting, and she and her mother met us in Granville. We were subsequently on our way to MedVets in Worthington to finally get some answers.

Upon admittance to MedVets, Winston proceeded to have another petite mal seizure in the waiting room, which (fortunately or not, depending on how you look at it) got us very prompt attention. They did another X-ray and found, this time, that things had gotten much worse since Friday: the staple had now turned 90 degrees and was threatening to puncture intestinal walls if it was forced through; Dr. Lasher also said that his intestines, now full of an unknown substance, looked both bloated and stretched to a severely unhealthy level and that immediate surgery would be the best option, though not without a lot of inherent risks. We love our puppy, so it was no question what we needed to do; thus, we sent him into surgery and laid down in the waiting room for what was to be a very uncomfortable 4-5 hours.

When the surgeon finally came out, he told us that Winston was doing as well as could be expected, but that he was worried about a few things. First and foremost, he told us that the staple was a blessing in disguise as it wasn’t the primary problem. What he deduced was causing the problem, was a ribbon/string like “thing” (toy?) that had been swallowed and was gradually making it’s way through the intestinal tract, blocking up more and more as it went along. Rori and I are clueless as to how this happened, as there was NO obstruction on Friday’s x-ray and we watched him very closely Saturday/Sunday. *sigh* Puppies, as you probably know, get into everything.

The solution in this case, from what the surgeon told us, was to cut a small hole in the intestinal wall and pull everything out. Sadly, there was a lot of scratching and tearing from the embedded objects and the surgeon also had to take out roughly 20% of his small intestine in a procedure he was calling a gastrotomy(sp?). On the bright side again, we dodged a bullet in that they didn’t have to take any of his Ileum (which can lead to Short Bowel Syndrome and a host of other problems later down the road).

At last update (1:30EST, 6/30/09) He is doing well, MedVets has him in a device called a “bear hugger” which is designed to keep his body temperature at a stable level because he’s still a tad cold (which will happen if your intestines are out of your body for hours at a time). He is scheduled to be in the Vet’s care until about Thursday at the earliest. We have also taken precautionary measure by throwing away any ribbon/rope toys hey may have had. Eden is at Grandma and Grandpa Preston’s and we plan on bringing her home–and loving her immensely–after we go visit Winston around 4p.m. this afternoon.

Again, thanks to everyone on twitter, Facebook, and beyond who sent up prayers and positive energy. Please keep this up until Winston is home and fully recovered; we really appreciate it. If you would like more updates, please continue to read this site, or email me @ blinkswift@gmail.com . If you are fortunate to have my phone number, you may also call.text for updates, though I am notoriously horrible at getting back to people via this method.