Making the right choice

We spent the rest of June learning everything we could about liver shunts. I read every article, blog, and discussion board I could find online, and quickly realized that not many people were sharing a happy ending.

After lots of research and talks with our vet, and a veterinary surgeon we understood Leeland's problem. Rather than pumping through the liver and being cleansed, Leeland's blood was being routed around the liver by the shunt. The liver is especially important in breaking down proteins and keeping the blood "clean". With his blood completely bypassing his liver, toxins had been building up in his blood stream. He was essentially poinsoning himself with his own blood.

We of course didn't know this when we were choosing a high quality, high protein food for his "senstive stomach." All along we were contributing to the problem.

Leeland was immediately put on a low-protein prescription food, antibiotics to help with some of the bad bacteria building up in his intestine, and a laxative to keep everything moving so that no toxins were left in his system for too long.

He immediately improved! Within 24 hours his energy was back to about 80% and he was interested in playing again. We were told though that medical management was only a temporary solution, and that Leeland could still die at a very young age. His only chance at a long and "normal" life was to have a shunt ligation surgery. In which the surgeon would place an ameroid constrictor ring around the shunt, and it would slowly close the vessel off. This would force the blood back through the liver to be cleansed properly. The problem with the surgery is that a dog's liver might be too weak and underdeveloped to handle the new blood flow. The blood could back up and cause organ failure. It was hard to get any reliable statistics on the success rate of the surgery.

We now had a decision to make: medically manage for as long as possible and risk loosing him before his time OR have the surgery and risk losing him on the spot for a chance at a normal life.