PDA 3 month Post Surgery Follow up

Today I got to go to see Dr. Rosenthal http://www.cvcavets.com/doc%20bios%20-%20steven%20rosenthal.html for an Echo-cardi-arf-agram. It was my 3 month checkup from my heart surgery to make sure the ductal occluder is doing it's job. AP put me in the truck and my support team came and climbed into the Tonka Truck to wish me good luck.



My Peeps


Once we got to CVCA http://www.cvcavets.com/  in Annapolis Jamie http://www.cvcavets.com/staff%20bios.html took my blood pressure using my paw and then Dr. Rosenthal came in and listened to my heart and talked to AP for a little while. He said he was really happy with what he heard and then we went in another room for the Echo-cardi-arf-agram. Dr. Hickey http://www.cvcavets.com/doc%20bios%20-%20michael%20hickey.html was also there, he was another Dr. that assisted in my surgery. They lifted me up and put me on a special table for the test. The table has a hole cut out so that the Dr. can take a special wand and run it over my chest to get pictures of my heart and see what it is doing. I had to lay on my side and Jamie and AP leaned over me to keep me still. AP sang me the Tonka Truck song real soft in my ear to make me feel at ease. Dr. Rosenthal put the cold goopy stuff on my chest and moved the wand all around on my chest while flipping buttons and switches to get some good shots of my insides. The first time I had one Dr. Peckens did it and I tried to help. See http://blinddogsrule.blogspot.com/2011/03/be-still-my-beating-heart.html  I tried to help Dr. Rosenthal as well but Jamie and AP caught on too quickly and grabbed my paw.

These are pictures from my first one and all the yellow in the bottom left and right shots meant my heart had a hole and was leaking.



March 2011



These are pictures from right after my surgery and the bottom right shows no more yellow which meant the ductal ocluder was in place and doing it's job.



April 2011



These are pictures from today and the top right shows everything in place and doing well.



July 2011


Dr. Rosenthal told AP that she can cut back on the meds and eventually stop them and to just monitor my heart rate.

Since I was such a good boy I got to go for a long walk with Nala.
After dinner I curled up with a peanut butter kong

ummmm Peanut Butter!

and then fell fast asleep.

5 weeks post PDA surgery

AP here:


Earlier in the week we went back to the cardiologist. Tonka has been sluggish and not his usual happy bouncy self. He was vomiting every so often and refusing to eat his breakfast. The bigger concern for me was that he was not interested in anything being cooked in the kitchen. His pre-surgery blood work had showed an abnormal creatinine level which can be a marker to show a kidney problem so we had a new blood panel run. Fortunately his blood work came back with everything normal so Dr. Ferguson started him on Pepcid AC twice a day. This seems to have done the trick and he is now eating with no more vomiting but he is still sluggish and with the hole in his heart fixed he should be just the opposite. Next week he will be outfitted with a cardiac holter monitor. The report generated from the monitor measures the number of PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions) or heartbeats that happen before the normal heartbeat, present during a 24-hour period among other data. Tonka's original heart episode was an arrhythmia which is an abnormal pattern of heartbeats either too fast or too slow. His arrhythmia was Atrial fibrillation (AF or “A-fib”). Usually, atrial fibrillation is associated with an underlying structural heart disease with severe secondary heart chamber enlargement (usually left atrial enlargement). His heart is enlarged on the left side and now that he has had the surgery to stop up the hole it should remodel back down a bit. The top chambers (the atria) get the blood from the body and lungs, and their job is to squeeze extra blood into the lower pumping chambers (the ventricles). When the atria fibrillate, the ventricle lose this extra “kick” from the atria, and this leads to less filling of the ventricles, and less forceful of a contraction. Typically the heart rate becomes extremely fast and irregular during atrial fibrillation, and patients may have heart rates above 200-220 beats-per-minute. This leads to decreased filling time for the ventricles, and even less cardiac output. Tonka’s heart rate was above 200 the day he collapsed. The readout from the monitor should be back and interpreted within a week so we will then have a better picture of what his heart is up to

4 Days Post PDA Surgery

AP here:

Today is Friday and Tonka man had heart surgery on Monday. Tuesday was a good day, Wednesday not so good and Thursday really not so good. I should have expected that since the same was true with his eye surgery. It is the old "it will get worse before it gets better" saying.
The incision site to the femoral artery became very angry looking and he started to have swelling and fluid build up down the leg and up and out through the groin.



Wednesday



Friday

Tonka loves kids, walks and cheese - mostly in that order. So when he didn't seem to care that the kids were out and he refused to get up and walk or come for cheese then I knew he was hurting. I had been a little stingy on his pain meds so the Dr. said we should give him the full dose and see if he perked up any. When after a full day  of meds he was still unresponsive and would not eat and refused water I started to really worry. I called CVCA and they responded really quickly and Tonka was seen early this morning by Dr. Ferguson in Annapolis. He and I discussed the swelling and fluid retention and he added warm moist compresses to his recovery and a round of antibiotics. During the exam they had to really poke and prod to make sure everything was OK and in doing so I think they unstuck something that was bothering the Tonk Man. Every time I would get him up this week he would whirl around every few steps like something under his leg was tugging on him. That stopped after his exam today. This afternoon he laid out front for a little while and went for a walk with his friend Nala. hopefully tomorrow will be an even better day.

Friday Evening