October 2008 - Buddy Wiggins
Buddy Wiggins' dirty socks
Buddy was admitted as an emergency on Sunday evening as he had been vomiting for the last 24 hrs. In most cases we would advise a bland diet for 24 hrs before admitting animals however Buddy is rather partial to the odd sock or two and we were concerned that a foreign body may be causing the vomiting.
He was admitted to be put on fluids and the vomiting seemed to improve. He was kept in overnight and was making good progress so his drip was removed ready to go home. Unfortunately before he could go home Buddy took a turn for the worse and the vomiting started again. We decided he needed an x-ray which revealed something strange looking in his abdomen which needed a further investigation meaning an Exploratory Laparotomy.
Buddy was prepped for surgery and quickly taken through to theatre. We soon found the cause of the problem, a large structure was stuck in his intestines causing the guts to contract over it and concertina up as thy tried to pass over the obstruction (we call this a linear foreign body). The offending object turned out, not surprisingly, to be a sock.
Buddy was kept in overnight again while he recovered from his operation but was doing very well so was sent home where he is recovering from his ordeal and hopefully will leave retrieving dirty socks to his owners from now on.
