The Operation
On Monday, 5th January Ellie my rescue Staffordshire Bull Terrier, went in to Calder Vets, Dewsbury, to have 2 lumps taken off her back, the operation went well and she had come round, then she started to struggle to breath. Her breathing was life threatening so one of the Consultants was sent for. I am lucky, my vets have quite a few consultants there all the time.
Adam Bell, the Consultant, put her under again to see what was wrong with her breathing, he found her voicebox badly swollen so put her on a drip to see if it would reduce, unfortunately it didn't, in fact her breathing got worse, so he had no choice but to do a temporary tracheotomy, she was dying because she couldn't breath.
Ellie was watched very carefully or 2 days, On Wednesday they tried to cover the hole to see if she could breath on her own, she couldn't so another consultant, Joachim Proot, another Consultant, operated on her, shortened her soft pallet which was so long it had damaged her voicebox so he had to do some repair work on that as well. They were then waiting until Friday to see if she was healing well enough to take the tracheotomy out.
Thursday the temporary tracheotomy started to cause problems so the decision was made to put a permanent one in, If the vet hadn't done this Ellie would have died. Although this is a permanent tracheotomy she could eventually heal enough for this to be taken out but my vets seem to think this won't happen.
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Friday Ellie could breath properly, probably the first time in her life she could so was feeling fit and well. Ellie decided that she had been in the kennel long enough and started to destroy it so a bed was put in the corridor where the computers are, with a water bowl, a harness put on Ellie and she was attached to one of the tables. Ellie had a wonderful time, everyone was given lots of Staffy kisses and cuddles and the staff used to play with her as well.
Ellie continued to improve over the weekend and had a wonderful time with the staff, even the night staff were playing with her.
Monday morning Ellie had to be put back into her kennel because a lot of dogs were coming in for operations and were she was could have been dangerous to her but again she tried to destroy her kennel. It was before 8am when I had a phone call to ask me to go and pick her up as soon as possible, she had been put with the ladies who do the insurance claims and was quiet but couldn't stay there. In fact these ladies were too busy playing with Ellie to do any work.
A week after she went in Ellie came home.
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