02/09/2024
--- CAKA’S UNLUCKY INTESTINES ---
We wanted to share with you the story of beautiful Caka, one of our patients, with the hope that some of you may also want to help her mum out. Caka is one of the happiest, goofiest, most waggy dogs that comes in to see us, and the poor thing keeps getting herself into trouble!
She was adopted by mum Lisa 2 years ago, as an adult rescue dog, coming from a traumatic past. She came with multiple sore leg issues – hip dysplasia and knee issues, and has been very lucky to find an owner who has been so dedicated to caring for her and tending to her medical needs. Caka is also a bit silly sometimes though – she ate a toy last year, and needed to have intestinal surgery at the time to remove the toy from her intestines. She made a full recovery from this surgery, and her mum covered her treatment as needed.
A few weeks ago, Caka again started showing similar signs of going off her food and seeming not herself. We suspected that she had eaten something that had gotten stuck again, and we were all very worried about the implications of possibly needing another abdominal surgery. Financially this also has been hugely stressful for her mum, who took her on as a rescue 2 years ago, and has already spent thousands on her ongoing issues. When faced with the awful decision of needing to try for another surgery thinking that Caka had eaten something again - despite constant supervision - her mum gave her another chance and we proceeded to surgery.
When we opened Caka up, we found that she hadn’t been naughty at all – she was just very unlucky, and had a piece of omentum (abdominal fat) that had wrapped around her jejunum (a part of her intestines), causing this part of the intestine to have a poor blood supply and start to break down. The piece of intestine was turning purple / black by the time of surgery, no food was able to pass beyond this point, and it would have ruptured very soon if we didn't do surgery. Caka had to have this piece of intestine removed entirely (an end-to-end anastomosis), with clean healthy edges of intestine either side sutured back together.
Caka is making a great recovery so far – and we are all so happy that this beautiful girl is still around to wag her tail non-stop, and that this time her surgery wasn’t even from being a bit silly! We are also aware of the huge financial stress her poor mum has undergone to keep tending to Caka, so wanted to share this story in case anyone wanted to help her out.
Here are a few pictures of gorgeous Caka.
The link to her give a little page is: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/caka-needed-another-emergency-operation-costing
