Please, good thoughts and prayers...

by **pocketpit** » July 8th, 2009, 3:27 pm

I'm too far away to do any puppy raising but good thoughts are coming from here constantly.

by **Pit♥bull** » July 8th, 2009, 4:12 pm

by **iluvk9** » July 8th, 2009, 4:47 pm

Katrina, are you a member of this organization? http://www.workingmalinois.org/

A member of the Golden forum said that Mal organization has a forum and maybe you can find help there.

by **call2arms** » July 8th, 2009, 8:18 pm

Surrogate moms would be awesome, hopefully this works out!!

Her belly... O-U-C-H. I hope the c-section option wors out, too. I just can't imagine contractions with that, it's got to hurt...

by **blabsforbullies** » July 8th, 2009, 8:33 pm

katiek0417 wrote:And, he seems to be optimistic that while she may not be able to take care of the babies completely, she might be able to at least help...he said that doing it this way will be less painful than letting the skin slough off...although she'll still be ouchie a little...but a lot less so...

Send those good thoughts coming, please....

I was thinking the same thing. Would it be possible to hold the puppies there, and let them nurse (assuming there is adequate milk production and that the meds she was on weren't harmful to the pups :wink:

), and then keep them in an incubator most of the other time?

Maybe let her care for one at a time, with monitoring? I don't know :confused:

.... it may be too much. But, if you only had a few, and a few were being fostered???

I am so sorry to see those pictures. :sad2:

It breaks my heart. :cry1:

I soooo wish I were closer to help you with everything. :hug3:

by **amazincc** » July 8th, 2009, 8:44 pm

Still sending lots of healing vibes to Dru... :hug3:

by **madremissy** » July 8th, 2009, 9:26 pm

Katrina is a very busy mommy right now and asked me to post an update.

Dru had a c-section and reconstruction surgery on her tummy today at 1:00. Nine beautiful, tiny little babies. It took an hour to deliver the babies and another hour and a half to do the other surgery needed.

There is a little bad news and we need a lot of good thoughts still coming. Dru had a very severe infection going on in within the incision. The vet who saw her last night assured Katrina there was no infection but Katrina made the choice to take Dru to her other vet today and have a c-section done. Thank goodness because the infection was severe. She was given a broad spectrum antibiotic injection. The culture will be back tomorrow and then they will know if further anitibiotics are needed.

The doctor had to cut a lot of the dead tissue away and then put her tummy back together. Her skin is stretched very tightly. The doctor then discussed the issue of nursing. Her 4 lower nipples closet to her vagina are viable. Katrina will have to try to let 4 at a time nurse a little and then rotate out. While the others are nursing, she will give them formula. She is trying to get the anitbodies that the puppies so desperately need from Dru.

It is going to be a long night but I have faith that Katrina can do it. When she has time I am sure that she will come and give and update and more details that I didn't include.

I think I passed along everything correctly, if not she can correct.

Please send good thoughts for a good night for Dru, Katrina and the puppies.

by **amazincc** » July 8th, 2009, 9:30 pm

Sending my very, very best wishes to all of them!!! I am SOOOOO glad she went to her other vet.

Thanks for the update, Missy... I have been worrying about all of them. :hug3:

by **Leslie H** » July 8th, 2009, 10:42 pm

Aww, poor Dru and poor Katrina. Sounds like you made a great decision to get her in and worked on. I bet you saved both Dru's life and the puppies. That would be great if she could nurse, even for just a day or 2 to let them get the colostrom. My thoughts are with you guys.

by **Jenn** » July 8th, 2009, 10:44 pm

Oh my goodness, thanks for all the info Missy.

by **call2arms** » July 8th, 2009, 11:42 pm

Wow, good decision to get the c-section, this could have been a lot worse had the infection gone on... And good news for the 4 available nipples, it's better than none! I'm sure Dru and the puppies will be alright.

by **Malli** » July 9th, 2009, 3:11 am

oh no! good thoughts!
This will be rough but I'm sure you and Dru can do this, Katrina.

by **cheekymunkee** » July 9th, 2009, 4:34 am

I am SO glad that part is over. Hopefully she will heal quickly and completely. Poor puppy

I cant imagine how she feels

by **iluvk9** » July 9th, 2009, 6:16 am

We are thinking of you, Katrina!!! :groupHug:

by **pitbullmamaliz** » July 9th, 2009, 7:01 am

by **katiek0417** » July 9th, 2009, 8:27 am

Hey all, I'm going to take a quick nap (not a whole lot of sleep last night...but when I wake up, I'll update!

And thank you so much for all the good thoughts and wishes!

by **TinaMartin** » July 9th, 2009, 10:53 am

I'm glad that you didnt listen to the first vet. Thinking lots of good thoughts!

by **katiek0417** » July 9th, 2009, 12:35 pm

First, Missy, thank you for filling everyone in! and thank you to all of you for all your continued good thoughts.

To start from the beginning...after seeing the other vet the other night, something kept nagging me. I did specifically ask the other vet if he would do a c-section and fix her belly at the same time. It seemed to be the perfect answer. He wouldn't do it. He also insisted that she did not have an infection and that the dead tissue was due to the lack of blood supply to the area where the puppies were laying.

Well, something wasn't sitting right...so I called our regular vet yesterday morning, and he set up to have the other vet come in (it was supposed to be her day off) and he had 5 vet techs, and still ended up shutting down the hospital - they actually locked the doors and turned off the phones...they really needed all available hands on deck, so to speak.

Dr. Parrish did the c-section first...and there were 12 puppies in there...all 12 were born alive, however, they very quickly lost 3, and they spent the next half hour trying to revive the 3, using shots, etc...but they couldn't do it. And, before the surgery, I told Dr. Jaffe that as much as I cared about the pups, if it came down to it, make my girl better. They had boxed up the 3 for me, but I forgot them...the one receptionists son, who is a vet tech there, took the box home and buried it for me and put a stone marker (she was telling me he was in tears when Dr. Jaffe said they would just dispose of the puppies)...so, 9 puppies: 2 are almost completely black, 3 brindle, and 4 fawn...

Then, Dr. Jaffe dove in to her belly. When he peeled back the top layer of skin, he smelled the sickeningly sweet/putrid smell of rotting meat. Directly under that dead layer of blackened skin she was filled with pus and blood. No infection, my a$$. :rolleyes2:

(Dr. Jaffe said it was a very good thing we went in there and took care of this now...if we had waited, she could've gone septic). Well, unfortunately he couldn't tell what it was so he did have to send out a culture. He said there was a lot of dead skin on top, and a good amount of dead tissue underneath. He cleaned everything, and was sure to actually take a little extra tissue in case that tissue directly touching what was already dead was starting to turn. Then, he put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I say that b/c if you look at her stomach, it's like puzzle pieces. She has one long line of stitches going from about mid-sternum all the way down, then she has lines of stitches coming out all over. He also put in several drains in all different spots.

While Dr. Jaffe and Stacie (vet tech) were doing that, everyone else was getting Karo syrup for the puppies, and started to feed them, then got them under a heat lamp, etc...

I got there and also did a hand-feeding, and went to see Dru...she was very happy to see me, and started to kiss my face and everything. Dr. Jaffe double and triple checked on all the meds he wanted to give her for pain, and gave her a very puppy-safe antibiotic injection. However, pending the results of the culture, he may have to change that, which could make it impossible for her to nurse.

I brought everyone home last night, and the real work began. Dru was very sore, and they had given her pain meds before she left. So, she was pretty out of it for a while. So, we started to hand feed, take weights, etc. Around midnight she finally got up, and we brought her out...she wanted to take care of the puppies, licking them all, stimulating them to go to the bathroom, etc, but you could also tell that every time they grabbed a nipple, she would just "grin and bear it" per se. She is much less painful on the two lower nipples, and those are the ones we're trying to use...We're feeding every 2 hours, but only using her every 4.

We also decided that putting the puppies in the same room with Dru would likely be very stressful for her.

Based on something I saw last night, I made a suggestion. We put the puppies in the back bedroom, where Asja is crated. When we brought them, they made little noises, and she started to whimper. So, this morning, we got Asja out, and told her to down, and one by one, we gave her the puppies. She stimulated and cleaned each and every one of those puppies (if only she'd start producing milk, we'd be golden!) And, she does a much better job with it. I mean, we weren't awful...but she was 100x's better!

Anyway, that's where we are now. They are due for another feeding in a few minutes, and this one will be with Dru...but in the meantime, here are some pics of the munchkins (sorry the coloring is off on a couple, I was taking these pics late last night and we had the heat lamp on, then off, then on)!

by **pitbullmamaliz** » July 9th, 2009, 12:53 pm

Great googly moogly. Look how precious they are. :shock:

by **iluvk9** » July 9th, 2009, 1:18 pm

Sounds like progress! :confetti:

Please, good thoughts and prayers...

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