After not posting for a very long time, I want to write a post on our dog, Odette. She is the puppy, formerly Rose, which we adopted on February 13th. Since then we have moved her half way across the planet, to Austria where she will live with us for the next (rough estimation) 3-5 years. A post on travelling with a dog will be made soon, to share our experiences on this, for anyone who might need it.
In this post, however, I want to talk about a more serious issue we've been facing with Odette and what we are doing to solve it.
What happened:
Just about 2 months ago, during a bike ride, Odette jumped out of the basket at the front of my bike, did a bit of a flip, but seemed fine apart from a little cut on her lip. About two days later I noticed that her left eye looked a little cloudy and that the lens looked like it was broken into three parts. Over the next few days her eye would look completely normal, and then very cloudy so we took her to the vet. He said that she might have a cataract, but decided to send us to the animal clinic in Hollabrunn with an eye specialist for animals. The morning of the appointment her right eye looked exactly the same like the left one did just 3 weeks prior. A cloudy and "broken" lens. On the one hand I was shocked because now both eyes were affected, on the other hand it gave me something to properly show the vet instead of "just" describing it.
Once there the vet looked at her eyes we knew that she does have a cataract and on both eyes. It is hereditary and had nothing to do with the fall she took. At this point we are about 4 weeks in, since we noticed the change in her eye and we were told that she could only see out of her right eye about half of her normal vision. In order to restore her sight we would need eye surgery where they break up the clouded lens with ultrasound and insert a new, "fake" lens that also cannot get cloudy. Her vision would then be near-perfect. Since the vet was going to be away and wanted this to get operated on as soon as possible, she sent us to another clinic, the University Clinic for Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, which has some of the best doctors in all of Europe, if not even the world.
Once there we did the same examinations as before and it turns out that Odette is a perfect candidate for eye surgery and has very high chances of a perfect recovery. However something bothered the vets, the results of her blood test. Her ALT and ALKP results were unusually high so we did another blood test to rule out any false results. Same happened again, all pointing to a faulty liver, most likely due to a "liver shunt". With these results the doctors did not want to operate on her eyes because the anaesthesia would be too hard on her body.
The quick facts on liver shunts:
- A liver shunt is basically a blood vessel that develops either before or after birth, inside or outside the liver. It's a blood vessel that is not supposed to exist and that transfers blood around the liver instead of through it. The liver cannot do its job and cannot remove any toxins that are in the blood. They end up going straight to the brain causing neurological issues (such as seizures).
- Shunts outside the liver can be easily operated on, shunts inside the liver not so much. If the shunt can be operated on, there is a survival rate of over 95% (
Stats taken from U of Tennessee).
- Shunts that are present before birth can cause symptoms such as underweight dogs, diarrhea, occasional vomiting, but also seizures, weird behavior... These shunts can be operated as the liver can develop to its proper size after surgery.
- Shunts that develop after birth normally develop because the liver has a defect in general and can generally not be operated because they would re-appear.
- Shunts that cannot be operated on can be managed medically with a low-protein diet, antibiotics and lactulose for the rest of their life, however 50% of all dogs treated medically die within 10 months of diagnosis (
Stats taken from U of Tennessee).
Story continues:
Another week later we did an ultrasound to try to figure out if her shunt is inside or outside the liver. Everything points to a shunt outside the liver that developed while she was still in her mothers body, as she has always been a tiny dog (though her brother was twice her size), has had diarrhea on and off (which we always found reasons for such as "she just got new meds", "she needs to get used to Austrian food and water"...), etc...
And now:
Tomorrow, on September 23, she will have a laparoscopic surgery to look at her liver in more detail. If it is only a shunt outside the liver, she will have surgery right away, most likely restoring her liver to a normal within the next 2-4 months and letting us operate on her eyes within the next 6-8 weeks.
The only thing we are waiting for tomorrow is a call after the laparoscopic surgery: Is the shunt inside or outside the liver, is it one big shunt or many small vessels. If the shunt is outside and just one big one, she should be completely fine and I will get her back after about 3 days. However if the shunt is inside the liver and/or if it is a lot of small vessels rather than one big one, we will not be able to operate. If we cannot operate we are not sure if we can get her eyes fixed either and then her life span would probably be drastically shortened.
Please wish us luck and/or pray for her. I hope that the call tomorrow comes and tells me that they were able to operate and that she is doing well in recovery. I will keep you all posted.
