BRAVE PET OF THE MONTH... William, a male neutered 10 month old cat came to us as a referral after being seen at his own vets following a road traffic accident. He had multiple fractures to his mandible (lower jaw), multiple fractured teeth, lots of swelling, bleeding and degloving injuries to his mandible. He also had a pneumothorax (air in his chest around his lungs rather than in them) on the right hand side. Poor William was in a bad way. Bob the vet discussed all the options with Mrs Buckle, we could attempt to treat him, fix the fractures, remove the necessary teeth, drain the excess air from his chest and provide him with intensive care to aid his recovery or unfortunately the only other option available to us was to put him to sleep. Mrs Buckle wanted us to try and save him so Bob got to work straight away and operated that evening through to midnight. Vicky one of the nurses stayed late and Laura our head nurse came in especially to assist Bob with the procedure and monitoring the anaesthetic. Nicola was our night nurse that evening and assisted as well. It was all hands on deck! Firstly, Bob took x-rays to see exactly what was needed to fix Williams various problems. The first thing that needed to be addressed was the pneumothorax, Bob placed a chest drain to allow the air that shouldn’t be there to be removed-150mls of air was removed in total! William’s breathing and the oxygen levels in his blood immediately improved. We were then happier as William was more stable to undergo the extensive facial work that was needed. Bob used various specialist facial fracture repair techniques to bring Williams jaw back into alignment and remove any necessary fractured teeth. Bob then worked meticulously to repair the damaged skin and gingival (gum) surface. A feeding tube was placed so that we could keep Williams strength up in the hospital while his mouth healed. After his operation William was kept in the hospital for intensive care monitoring and to keep him topped up with strong pain relief. Nicola, our night nurse was with him all night providing nursing care. By 9am the next morning William was showing some signs of improvement-he had even started to purr when the nurses were giving him a fuss and cuddles!!! He was still critical at this point but he was a fighter and over the next few days he went from strength to strength. It took William just over a week to start eating again for himself and as soon as he was strong enough we got him home with regular check ups on his progress. He had a second surgery once his mouth had fully healed to remove the wires that were no longer needed. He is now back to his normal active self and doing fantastically. I’m sure you will agree this little man has been through a lot and now he is fully recovered and doing well and so we are pleased to award him our Brave Pet of the Month Award!!! Well done William!
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 10:04:28 +0000
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