surgery2

I got a call from the vet and he told me that the surgery did go well. He took out something like a toy ball which had been stuck in my dog's gut.
I went to see the doctor to see what it was (I was not allowed to see my dog yet though. She has to be hospitalized for 3 days and any factor that makes her excited should be avoided meanwhile. Yeah, dogs can't know why they should keep calm when their owners came to see them but excitement surely doesn't help healing the wound).

The reddish stuff in the second picture is the thing came out from her body. It is a part of rubber ball but it has already lost its color and elasticity. I don't know how long it had been staying in her gut but I wonder if I should put her muzzle on from now on when I take her a walk. She likes to pick up anything like a ball but I can't see clearly what she is picking up when I take her out at night.

The first picture is the one the doc took at the surgery. The roundish thing at the left top is the ball stuck in the small intestine. It looks pretty big, doesn't it? I don't know if you can see it clearly from the pic but the dark-reddish part at the right bottom is the small intestine with necrosis. We had to cut off that part and it almost reached to 20 cm. The doctor showed me the severed part of the intestine and asked me if I wanted to bring it home but I said no. I brought home only that ball with me.

It's good that the surgery is done but we have to worry about later reaction too. Since quite long part of the intestine was cut off and the end of the intestines with different diameter was sutured each other(the diameter of the small intestine becomes bigger towards the large intestine), there might be a chance of leak at the sutured part. If bacterias living in the gut leak out of the intestine they can cause peritonitis.

Hmmm....worries never end......but considering it has already caused necrosis, it was good decision to have her take the surgery. Even if we wait a little bit longer I'm sure now that the foreign material won't come out as a poop.

はなちゃん、気付くのが遅くなってごめんね～。
('ε')/ peritonitis: when bacteria in the digestive system leak into the abdominal cavity (which should be aseptic), it causes inflammation on peritoneum. That's peritonitis. Accompanies severe pain.