05/07/2024
A Happy Story to start your day!
Meet Lloyd – a handsome Staffordshire, 10 years young.
Lloyd had been happily enjoying himself on the farm when within the space of an hour, things changed. He suddenly became lethargic, he was wobbly on his feet and his owners noticed very diligently that his gums weren’t as deep pink as usual.
Lloyds parents promptly bought him to us where we performed our physical exam and a detailed history, ruling out possible toxins and injury. Following on from our findings on physical examination and discussions, we decided an ultrasound was required.
Within minutes, Lloyd had an ultrasound performed and diagnosed a lot of blood within his abdomen. As we continued the scan to find the cause of this bleed, we unfortunately found an ugly looking growth on his spleen.
Lloyd’s owners were faced with an urgent, and stressful decision – an older dog, with a ruptured splenic mass, the odds of this being good long term were not in his favour. Unfortunately, 60-75% of splenic masses that also have blood in the abdomen (hemoabdomen) are Haemangiosarcomas, these are nasty malignant tumours and have often already spread to other organs by the time they are identified.
A decision on whether to euthanize, or to do a blood transfusion and surgery to remove the spleen (which also came with an uncertain, and if not statistically un-favorable long-term prognosis). Lloyd’s owners decided to do what they could for Lloyd and we went ahead with the plan – blood transfusion and splenectomy (removal of the spleen)
Cue in our Savior – a sweetheart of a Greyhound, Lentil.
Emma Simpson is one of our lovely clients that volunteers their dog as a blood donor. Greyhounds are hot property when it comes to blood as they have such high red blood cell volumes, they are the ideal blood donor.
Emma dropped Lentil off for blood donation within 20mins of the decision being made, and Lentil was once again an absolute star. He lay there like an angel while we collected his blood, no sedation, just pats and good chat! He was stoked to get a good meal afterwards, and off he trotted home, casually saving a life, all in an evening!
The transfusion of Lentil’s blood to Lloyd was then very slowly started, to check for any transfusion reactions, and conveniently while our staff replenished their energy levels with some ham buns for the evening surgery. The speed of the transfusion was then increased and continued throughout the surgery.
Lloyd’s abdomen was opened up and there was a lot of blood! We suctioned this off and identified the culprit – the mass on the spleen had ruptured and was continuing to bleed. With two of our vets scrubbed in and working together – they proceeded to tie off all the vessels to the spleen - and remove the spleen in its entirety.
The rest of the organs and intestines were inspected for any obvious visual nodules - given we were concerned about a cancerous spread, however all looked ok.
Whenever we take a mass out, or a diseased organ in this case, we always recommend histopathology – which tells us what exactly the growth, or in this case, the mass of the spleen is.
Lloyd finished his blood transfusion that night, and by the next evening, he was ready to go home!
We all awaited anxiously the results over the next week.
Test result day, the best possible news – HAEMATOMA!
A hematoma is a benign mass – ie just a big bloody growth (no pun intended), but one that does not spread to other organs or cause ongoing problems once it is removed.
It’s always so fantastic giving clients this news and they were so thrilled to hear their boy has a great prognosis. Lloyd has continued to do well and may he do so for years to come - at least we won’t get any trouble from that spleen!
And big love to Lentil and his mum – the humble hero’s
