"There is plenty of time," my new assistant Nia said to me. "This Maltese is 4 years old."
I had advised my assistant to be well prepared as I wanted to perform a speedy surgery to remove the large tumour outside the ear canal and more tumours inside the ear canal.
"She looks young," I showed Nia the eyes of the Maltese. "Look at his thick white cataract eyes. Four-year-old dogs do not have eye cataracts normally."
I said, "Young dogs can survive a longer anaesthetic time but she is 14 years old and had heart murmurs. Any lengthy surgery might lead to heart failure and death!"
So I was much worried about death on the operating table. The young lady
owner had consented to the operation as her Maltese kept scratching the
right ear till the skin bled and soiled the apartment and her furniture
and her bed. She had cleaned the infected ear mass for the past 3 weeks
and had given the oral antibiotics and painkillers daily. A blood test
showed the Maltese had no liver, kidney or blood disorders and was fit
for surgery.
"Doc, see, the ear tumour is present only outside
the ear now," Ms Jenny Lim declared ."So just remove this tumour outside
the ear canal would do!"
"The right ear has more hidden
tumours inside the vertical canal. You just can't see them." I said.
"Please place your fingers and feel the hard lump way down the vertical
part of the ear canal. Then compare this ear to the softness of the
vertical canal of he left ear! No lumps at all."
She was the Millineal generation of dog owners who surf the net for information about her dog's ear tumours and knew more than the baby-boomer generation.
The dog survived the anaesthesia although she had a weak heart. The owner wanted her home on the next day and would nurse her wounds. I gave an Antisedan injection IM to reverse the drowsiness of Domitor and the dog woke up within 2 minutes.
Old dogs should get up fast as
prolonged recumbency may lead to respiratory or cardiac failure.
Antisedan is a good antidote. The lady owner was happy as her dog was
alive. No histopathology was done to lower medical costs.
Speedy surgery is necessary in old dogs. However, this case still took around 50 minutes.
I am grateful that she survived the operation as old dogs are extremely high risk anaesthetic patients. Domitor + Ketamine + isoflurane + oxygen were used in this case.
UPDATES AND DETAILS
AT:
https://2010vets.blogspot.com/2013/06/1475-speedy-ear-tumour-surgery-in-14.html
ILLUSTRATION TO EDUCATE CLIENT ON FIRST CONSULTATION ON MAY 30, 2013
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