-Veterinary Cases-
Here is a favorite patient with a very difficult problem. Daisy is a young boisterous Golden Retriever with a zest for life and almonds. Her owner helped her burn up some energy by tossing her almonds in the evening. She loved it! However, one evening she played her game by catching an almond and sneezing the nut up into her nose! The owner was unaware this had happened until she began to "snort" nearly continuously and she came to Mesa Veterinary Hospital to see Dr. Batch. He tried simple medications at first, but it was soon evident that Daisy had a more severe problem.
Here we see Daisy laying in our endoscopy suite under anesthesia. Click on the picture for a closer view of the area!
Daisy was anesthetized to permit a closer endoscopic examination of her posterior nares (the back side of her nose!) The scope revealed a large almond stuck securely within the opening. The picture below shows part of the nut only after it was poked and prodded out of its very secure location!
The almond had become lodged and was still in one piece, but it broke in two
when it was grabbed by one of our many grasping tools within the nose. A
very difficult thing to do!
This picture show a catheter which was used to gently push the
nut out to where it could be flushed out into the throat.
Keep in mind you are looking at the posterior nares above the hard
palate!!
Finally the offending almond laying out on the table where it belongs!!
Click on the pictures to get a closer view!
Here we have a kitten who was caught in a reclining chair and managed to dislocate his elbow! The first picture shows the post procedure kitten with a cast. The two x-rays show the dislocation and the replaced elbow in the cast. The final picture is the kitten weeks later without the cast and growing up!
Kastor is shown here asleep preparing for a major tendon repair. He is a police dog who mistakenly was lacerated by something very sharp in his own back yard. (Not by a "bad guy"!) His front flexor tendons were totally separated and he had each repaired His front leg was splinted to allow them to heal. He has done very well!
Now we can look at a little plastic surgery! This little Italian Greyhound had a repair for a distal radius fracture, but the little dog's skin was so thin that the plate pushed too hard underneath causing the skin to die, exposing the stainless steel plate. This picture shows how the skin disappeared exposing the plate. The upper half of the plate is healed over in the picture and is still hidden underneath the skin:
click on the picture for a close up.
The solution for covering the plate again is not an easy one. There is very little extra skin on the forelimb of an Italian Greyhound. Our solution was to skin graft a patch from the chest of the dog over the plate. This would cover the area with new skin that would be thicker and allow the plate to remain covered and the bone to heal. The tricky part is keeping the skin graft alive while it heals over the plate. The only way to do this is to leave it connected to its blood supply on the chest and wrap the graft around the leg over the plate and then suture it back to its blood supply on the chest. The little dog ended up with a sleeve of skin through which the leg had to remain immobilized for about 14 days. These pictures show our little friend getting prepared for the surgery and Dr. Smith positioning the skin graft over the plate. A close up picture is next of the graft in place prior to using a whole body wrap to immobilize the leg. The last picture shows the leg wrapped two weeks later after the graft was dissected from the chest wall and wrapped in normal position.
You will be happy to know the dog did very well and now has full use of her front leg - all healed!