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October 01, 2009 12:51PM
Hi everyone, please check out this shop, it sells a whole load of interesting stuff.
take care
Hazel
www.nichegallery.co.uk/
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December 29, 2006 03:16PM
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October 22, 2006 10:41AM
New Neish of life
by GARETH EDWARDS
An eight-week-old puppy has survived major heart surgery.
Winston was born with a rare heart defect which could have killed him before he was six months old if left uncorrected. The owners of the little Shetland Sheepdog, or Sheltie, discovered Winston had the life-threatening condition only two days after buying the puppy from a breeder. The two-hour operation was the first time vets at the Braids Vet surgery in Edinburgh had carried out the procedure, and Winston’s young age made it even more challenging.
But to the delight of his owners, the pup is now safe and well at his home in Burdiehouse Loan.
Jackie Neish, 36, and her husband David, 42, said that even though they had only bought the dog 48 hours before the problem emerged, there was no way they were giving up on him. " I had been searching for a Sheltie for years as an old neighbour used to have one, but I had never been able to find a breeder," said Mrs Neish. "Then at the Royal Highland Show I met one who earmarked a puppy for us. " We just took him to the vets two days after we bought him to get his vaccinations, and it was a real shock when we were told he needed heart surgery. We were totally in love with him, though, and we couldn’t really take him back, but it was very hard putting him in for the surgery. " I was a bag of nerves and I couldn’t sleep the first night because we had been told the first 24 hours were the most crucial. " I was told not to phone the surgery until 9am but I was up at 5am and just pacing the house."
Winston had what is called a patent ductus arteriosus, or a PDA, which vet Mike Hall explained was a heart murmur caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood. The problem, he said, was a rare condition in which an extra artery has diverted blood away from the lungs.
" When the animal is in the womb this artery feeds blood to the heart and then takes it to the placenta for oxygen," he said. "After birth it should close up, re-routing the blood to the lungs where they pick up oxygen. But in this case the vessel remained open, meaning a lot of blood was bypassing the lungs. This seriously affected the animal’s chance of survival as it would be susceptible to infection and would not develop. It certainly would not make it to adulthood.
" What we had to do was close off the artery so the blood would flow normally to the lungs, but if the artery ruptured at any point the animal would just have bled to death, so it was a very dangerous, if necessary, operation."
The procedure, called a thoracotomy, was made all the more difficult as, due to Winston being only eight weeks old, the artery was tiny and had the relative strength of tissue paper. To make matters worse, opening the chest made the animal’s lungs collapse so a ventilator had to be fitted to the puppy to keep him breathing. The surgery, which cost Winston’s owners around £700, was carried out by small animal surgeon Scott Dickson and cardiologist Ben Hynes, who said it was the first time he had carried out the procedure.
" A lot of the work vets do is like that as we deal with so many different complaints in different creatures," he said. "I have carried out a few heart operations on other animals, but never a puppy.
" It was particularly difficult as I had to operate right next to his beating heart. It was a bit nerve-wracking, and we are all overjoyed that Winston is doing so well."
Mrs Neish said the puppy, who is now 11 weeks old, was busily destroying the house, despite their attempts to keep him calm.
" It was great to get him back and even though the vet said to keep him calm and let him get plenty of rest, within 24 hours he was tearing the place apart," she said.
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