A wonderful bit of news this week about a special wee dog called Hope! We have been waiting a long time to share her story with you! Never give up Hope Hope and her brother Jock were born on 28th of October. On exam it was noted that Hope the smallest pup had a cleft palate (abnormal opening in roof of mouth) Having a cleft palate made it hard for Hope to attach to her mums nipple to feed and if she did manage she was at risk of the milk being aspirated (going into her lungs) causing respiratory/nasal infections which are very dangerous. We had 2 choices 1) Let her manage on her own but if her quality if life was poor then it would be kinder to put her to sleep 2) Have her owner tube feed her/get her strong enough to put her through corrective surgery at a referral centre. As you can guess we went for option 2!!! And so she was named Hope. We cut special little tubes to place in her oesophagus so her owner could feed her every 2hrs!! This doesnt not come without risk as it is very easy to feed the tube into a little puppys lung as they are so small. Hopes owners had a long 4 weeks of constant feeding, vet visits and medicating as sadly wee hope did develop nasal/chest infections. At 8 weeks she was doing well so she was weaned to try solid foods! Dry food moistened and wet food made into meatballs to avoid anything going up and lodging in the hole. Sadly daily cleaning of palate was needed with a cotton bud which she hated :( Again another tough couple of months followed until 29th of Feb at the age of 4 months Hope went for corrective surgery with specialist Liz Welsh. Her palate was stitched back together and wee Hope was discharged with stitches from her teeth to the back of her throat! She did really well following the surgery and we were all delighted!! Sadly Hopes bones in her mouth did not grow properly and the palate opened back up and we were all devastated, there was a possibility that we werent going to be able to mend the hole in Hopes mouth. Second surgery was performed in April where Liz used a technique never used before and once again wee Hope was discharged with a mouth full of stitches, her prognosis was extremely guarded as we didnt know if this surgery would work either! But our wee Hope is a fighter and even though it took her a bit longer to get over the operation initially her mouth healed well and she was signed off by Liz on Tuesday!!! Hopes young life has been full of injection, tube feeding, poking, prodding and through it all she has been the bravest little soul and is still happy to come in and see us! We all love her in the surgery and are so happy she can now have a normal life!!! The BIGGEST mention has to go to her wonderful owners!!! The amount of time, effort, sleepless nights, compassion, emotional trauma and money they have put in to fixing hope is incredible!! She would not be here if it wasnt for them!!! WELL DONE from all of us xxxxx
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 12:01:34 +0000
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