On July 16, 2008. Leeland had his liver shunt ligation surgery. After ultrasounds, and x-rays we were sure that's what it was. The surgeon said he wouldn't know exactly what he was dealing with until he actually opened Leeland up.
There were concerns that what looked like one big shunt on ultrasound was actually dozens of tiny inoperable shunts. Other concerns were that even squeezing the blood vessel would send Leeland into shock, making the ligation impossible.
I dropped Leeland off that morning and I cried like a baby. I have always been a "dog person" but I've never felt anything like my bond with Leeland. As crazy as it seems to some people, he really is like a baby to me. He is such a huge part of my life and I was terrified of losing him so soon.
I went to work and was a nervous wreck, finally around 3pm that afternoon I got the call from the surgeon. Leeland had done well in surgery and now only time would tell. He spent the night in the hospital and came home the next night. I made a bed on the floor and laid next to him all night (he was not strong enough to jump on the bed like he normally does, and we couldn't risk him jumping down and opening up his incision). He was so tired the whole next day, all he could do was whimper in pain. The second night home we went to sleep on the floor just like before, but this time he woke me up at 5am, seizing.
We hopped in the car and rushed to the emergency vet (which happens to have the office below our surgeons office). We saw the same night-shift doctor that we had in May. He put Leeland on Valium and told us that he would observe him for more seizures. We went home and waited to hear back. We called often and didn't get much news, after a few encounters with snobby receptionists and incompetent vet techs, we were thoroughly frustrated. Come to find out later that the office forgot to prescribe us a pain reliever for Leeland the day of surgery, keeping him in an extreme amount of unnecessary pain those few days.
We took him home that night and prayed there would be no more seizures. Luckily, there weren't. Slowly Leeland regained his energy and started acting like himself again.
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.
