Marley and Me
Friday, February 03, 2006
Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
It's funny. When people who have never owned a dog respond to my book, they often assume I must have exaggerated Marley's over-the-top mischief and antics. No, I tell them, it's all true. But when dog owners respond, they're completely unimpressed. "Is that all he did?" they ask. "Let me tell you what MY dog did!"
Toward that end, let me share a press release from the University of Florida that my friend Stacey Singer, a writer at The Palm Beach Post, shared with me today. This is such classic Lab behavior, it's almost like someone made it up. But it's 100 percent true. I can just hear the non-dog people now: "You mean to tell me a dog inhaled a wooden skewer without even chewing it?" Yes, that's what we're trying to tell you.
Here's the story (which I edited slightly for space):
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ATTENTION EDITOR: Photo available at
www.news.health.ufl.edu/imageGallery_recentnews.asp
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - When veterinarians and cardiologists from the
University of Florida said "Yankee, go home" this week, they did so with
pride and a sense of heartfelt joint ownership.
Yankee, a tail-wagging, 7-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, went home
from UF's Veterinary Medical Center today (Feb. 3) with her actual
owners, the Stazzone family of Satellite Beach, after successful open
heart surgery to remove a bamboo barbecue skewer from her heart.
In a collaborative procedure involving UF veterinarians and physicians
from the Congenital Heart Center at UF, Yankee was placed on bypass for
55 minutes Jan. 27 at a surgical research facility located near the MRI
unit that was used to pinpoint the skewer's location. The skewer had
perforated the dog's stomach and pierced the heart after she ate a steak
kabob.
The entire operation lasted about three hours, and pediatric
cardiothoracic surgeon Mark Bleiweis, M.D., the center's director, was
lead surgeon on the case.
"We had very little time to coordinate this thing, and the team worked
out really great," said Gary Ellison, D.V.M., a professor of small
animal surgery at UF who assisted in the procedure.
Once the skewer was removed, Bleiweis rebuilt a damaged heart valve.
"I'm really proud of what we did, and that we were able to put this
many people from so many specialties together to save this dog's life,"
Bleiweis said. "I'm an animal owner and this is someone's family
member."
Bleiweis added that although Yankee had a severe heart infection, she
responded to the procedure "better than most people do."
"We were able to get her off the ventilator and out of the operating
room without a problem and she was standing on all fours that same day,"
he said. "It was amazing."
After the operation was completed and Yankee awakened from the
anesthesia, she was transported back to the VMC's small animal intensive
care unit, where she continued to recuperate this past week.
"By Sunday night, she was eating and walking outside," said Nikki
Hackendahl, D.V.M., the small animal internal medicine resident at UF
who had primary responsibility for Yankee and monitored her progress
every day.
Yankee's woes actually began on Halloween, when the Stazzones had steak
kabobs for dinner and Yankee grabbed one, "practically inhaling the
whole thing," Mary Stazzone said. "Immediately she was sick and throwing
up, and everything I cleaned up was steak, but no stick."
After her initial surgery, Yankee seemed to have recovered. But two
months later her condition rapidly deteriorated and it initially
appeared to be unrelated to her previous illness.
When Yankee was admitted to the VMC a few days prior to surgery, her
blood was not clotting and she was anemic, Hackendahl said. Then
Hackendahl detected a heart murmur and immediately requested a
consultation from veterinary cardiologist Amara Estrada, D.V.M.
"We did an echocardiogram and noticed a strange linear structure in the
heart," Estrada said. "Then we found out the dog had a history of eating
a bamboo skewer back in October and surgery had been performed to remove
part of it from the dog's stomach."
The veterinarian who referred Yankee to UF had performed a CT scan and
been extremely thorough, but wood is not visible on a CT scan,
Hackendahl said.
Thankfully, Dr. Hackendahl discovered the heart murmur," Stazzone said.
"We knew there was a slim chance this would all work out, but we did a
lot of praying on this one. We obviously love Yankee very much."
Because of the close relationship Estrada and the veterinary cardiology
group have with the human pediatric cardiology team - the two groups
round together on Wednesdays - Estrada shared images from Yankee's
echocardiogram and asked her human counterparts' opinion.
"We were going to do inflow occlusion, a procedure that prohibits blood
flow but gives you only two to four minutes to open up the heart and
look inside," Estrada said. "They said this wasn't such a great idea due
to the short time frame and the limited access. I asked them for help
and they readily accepted and offered to assist us with the case."
Although Yankee developed a systemic infection that will continue to be
treated with antibiotics, she's alive and improving every day,
clinicians said. Her owners said their three daughters have been making
cards for Yankee and can't wait to have her home.
"I bought Yankee for my husband when we were just dating and we've had
her for seven years," Mary Stazzone said. "It was just such a shock how
this has all happened."
------------------------------------------
All I can say is, please don't send the vet bill to me! And you know as soon as Yankee gets home, she's going to make a beeline for the barbecue to see what's cooking.
posted by John Grogan at 8:35 PM
 
2 Comments:
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Best wishes to Yankee! Woof.
Dr Estrada is giving our laborador, Scooby, a pace maker next week. She has been a great help to us when we had no other reasonable options. It is great to have people out there like Dr Estrada and her team with the ability to make things right when it appears that all hope is lost. We will let you know how things turn out.