KWINDI LINDEKE, OCTOBER 2004 PET OF THE MONTH
In January of 2003, "Kwindi" Lindeke, a 12 year old female Basenji, was being admitted to our hospital for a dental prophylaxis. Her owner mentioned that she was depressed this morning
ad seemed uncomfortable. Further information was given that she had passed a sock several days before. Upon physical examination, she had a moderate elevation in heart rate, normal temperature, but a moderately distended abdomen with pain on palpitation of the
anterior quadrant. Blood work showed an elevated white cell count and elevated liver enzymes.
Radiographs demonstrated matter in her stomach that appeared to be food,
but her owner had withheld food overnight because of planned anesthesia. After repeating the radiographs several hours later and noting no change in
gastrointestinal contents, an exploratory was elected and performed.  Upon entering her abdomen, severe hemorrhage
was noticed in the wall of the bladder and in the retroperitoneal space around her kidneys and ureter. A urine sample was obtained which was near
normal. Due to the risk of bleeding a biopsy of the area was ruled out. Her liver was noted to be small and firm with a pebbled texture and yellowish pink in
color. A wedge biopsy of a liver lobe was taken. Kwindi's stomach was then opened and eight pieces of cloth were removed.
In discussing the findings with Kwindi's owner post-operatively, she related that 2 weeks prior Kwindi had fallen hard against her restraining seat in the car
when having to make an abrupt stop to avoid an accident. That explained the kidney trauma. The liver biopsy and a subsequent liver function test confirmed an early stage
of liver cirrhosis which by itself carried a very guarded prognosis and needed to be addressed rapidly if we were to have a chance at saving her life. She
was placed on Lecithin, Denosyl, and Vitamin E.....all liver sparing, somewhat holistic medications. Also perhaps more importantly, with Urosodial for biliary
stasis and Cholchicine, an antifibrotic, antibiotics, pain medications, and intravenous fluids. Further complicating the therapeutics was her historical problems of arthritis
and allergies that also needed to be addressed with a balanced medical approach. Twenty months later, Kwindi's problems are still responding well to medical
and dietary management. While the eating of clothing is a life threatening vice, in this situation, because her exploratory alerted us to her liver disease before
its terminal stages, her dietary discretion saved her life. As Paul Harvey would say, "and now you know the rest of the story." |
