Dr Liza’s Vet Tales Excerpt – Henry’s Horrendous Stomach Twist
During one of my shifts at the after-hours clinic I was presented with a handsome dog, a deerhound called Henry. He had been rushed in by the boarding kennel where he had been staying while his owners were away on holiday. Henry was suddenly very uncomfortable with a distended abdomen and he was vomiting and retching. He had a condition which large, deep-chested breeds are prone to called Gastric Dilatation and volvulus (GDV). This happens when these dogs eat a large meal and then their stomach twists around. The food in their stomach begins to ferment, producing a lot of gas which can’t escape because the outlet at the oesophagus is obstructed by the twist.
This is a serious emergency. The expanding gut puts a lot of pressure on the heart and lungs and it can even burst and kill a dog very quickly. The procedure is to stabilize the dog as best as possible with drip lines and drugs, then get it under a light anaesthetic, pass a stomach tube (if possible, if it’s not then you have to cut open the abdomen and rotate the stomach back with your hands) and then flush out the gut content. This can be a long and tedious process and to prevent reoccurrence long-term, we perform a gastropexy, a surgical procedure to sew the stomach in place so that it can’t rotate.
Thankfully Henry’s caregivers had brought him in immediately which meant that we would have a better chance of him surviving. I quickly got to work and was grateful that the stomach tube passed easily but next was the time-consuming and not particularly dignified job of flushing the gut out. At that particular clinic we had simple equipment and I had no better way of doing the flush than funnelling in water and sucking back on the tube with my mouth to allow for the stomach content to empty – pretty disgusting, especially for a vegetarian!
The kennels managed to get hold of the owners who had just arrived back from their holiday and understandably they were in a panic about their beloved Henry. They hurried to the clinic to watch me professionally sucking dog food stomach contents through a tube and spitting into the sink as I explained Henry’s condition.
They were very appreciative of what I had done and asked if they needed to contact their usual vet who also provided an after-hours service. Knowing that the after-hours clinic was established precisely to allow most of the surrounding vet clinics who contributed to its operations, the freedom from having to be called out of hours, I asked who their usual vet was. Upon hearing their reply, a grin began to appear on my face (possibly with bits of dog food hanging out!) but I did my best to hide it. It transpired that their usual vet was my previous employer with whom I didn’t quite see eye to eye and so I said, “Well they do run their own after hours service so you can call them if you would like to.”
Being dedicated owners they felt that contacting their usual vet would be appropriate and rapidly dialled the pre-programmed clinic number on their cell phone. The attending vet promptly answered… Now for any vet trying to enjoy the week-end one of the most terrifying things that can possibly happen is to have a good client phone with a dog GDV.
Henry’s wonderful owner, despite his panic, unintentionally said nothing to my ex-employer about Henry’s current status at the after-hours clinic and that the difficult job of passing a stomach tube and flushing out his stomach being taken care of until the last minute. When he couldn’t explain the details to his usual vet he asked if I would speak to him.
I picked up the phone (after rinsing my mouth!) knowing that my colleague would be feeling great trepidation as to what I might say about his patient and in all likelihood hoping that the worst was over and he wouldn’t have to begin the big job of looking after his patient. With great cheer and enthusiasm in my voice I greeted my ex-employer with “Hi Alan, it’s Liza, how are you?” He made a fairly good recovery after the moments of silence that preceded his question asking what had been done. The rest of the conversation was uneventful and Alan was obviously relieved that Henry was stable.
Henry recovered well. Because he was such an enormous chap, we didn’t have a cage big enough to accommodate him and tried to enclose him in a corner of the clinic. An hour after he awoke from his anaesthetic we found him strolling down the corridor and the next day off he went to his usual vet for further treatment – animals are incredible!
To read more about my adventures, read Vet Tales available as a book or e-book from https://www.drliza.co.nz/shop/