Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Tonka update

AP here:
Tonka and I returned to the CVRC at 7:30am this morning and the minute he got out of the truck he started sneezing blood everywhere. They hurried him to the back to take care of him and I setup camp for the day in a corner chair. Dr. Gonzales http://www.atlanticvetintmed.com/pages.aspx?content=35 was not free to talk to me until about 11:00. They put Tonka and I into an exam room and he checked him out and made him sneeze a few times. He then explained how the rhinoscopy procedure would go and what they would be looking for. He was very thorough and wanted me to understand that it would not be a fix for the nosebleeds unless they found a cause such as a tumor, polyp or foreign body. He would take some biopsies to send out to a lab to look for other cases such as fungus, allergies or a blood disorder. There is a rare platelet disorder that is found in Otterhounds and Great Pyrenees. http://ahdc.vet.cornell.edu/clinpath/modules/coags/Glanz.htm . Since Tonka had trouble with his femoral artery and bleeding during his heart surgery he wanted to make sure I understood that the scope procedure could become messy. He wanted to do a clotting test before doing the procedure and take some skull x-rays. I started to think that perhaps we should wait and do another week or so of medicines and see it that would stop the nose bleeds but it also seemed like it was the perfect time to do it if we were going to do it. The Cardiology center CVCA is part of the same group and Tonka's heart surgeon Dr. Rosenthal happened to be working at that location so I consulted with him as well.  In the end we had the procedure and this is the update:
No nasal tumors, no polyps, no foreign body,l no obvious cause of nosebleeds
Took biopsies to send out for infection and possibly some rare platelet blood thing that Pyrs can have.
He did real well with the anesthesia - heart was solid- some bleeding still so can't come home till tomorrow.

Now we wait

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