The x-rays were taken first, and holy maloly. It was the most severe obstructive pattern I have ever seen. All loops of bowel were severely dilated with an obvious foreign body right in the center of the x-ray. I showed the owner and she couldn't put her finger on exactly what that foreign body might be, but it didn't matter. It had to come out.
Oh my gosh. This is my first big surgical case. I was nervous about how this surgery would turn out... Intestinal surgery is a bit intimidating. I had to be confident that I could do it. After all- I do want to be a surgeon. I had practiced this in school, and seen a number of the surgeries performed before, but I was hesitant to trust myself.
After a pep talk to myself, and a quick glance at the surgery procedure book I scrubbed in for surgery. Once inside the abdomen, I examined all other organs to make sure they were normal. All was good. Then I started with the stomach and traced the intestines until I found the diseased tissue at the distal jejunum. Not good. There was no question about leaving this tissue enterotomy v. resection- it was dead and had to be resected.
All in all, I removed about 6 or 7 inches of intestine. I made sure to keep the blood vessels intact that would supply my remaining intestines, and watched as everything pulsed before lavaging (rinsing with sterile staline) the abdomen and closing him up.
Now for the waiting game. There is a 3-5 day window that that intestinal tissue will either heal up or fall apart. If it falls apart that means either another surgery or euthanasia, if death didn't come first. Luckily he did not vomit anymore. He began to eat, and pass feces. His temperature stayed within normal limits, and I was more than thrilled to hear that by the end of the 5 days it was taking at least 2 or 3 technicians to do any kind of treatment on this guy! He was ready to go home!
Two days after sending him home, I called to check in. He was doing absolutely perfect. Success!!!
Surgeon to Be ;)
iCat
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