Joey’s Pet of the Week – Pasty’s Painful Pee Pee

By Scott Lackenby | Dated January 14, 2016

Hey Gang!! How are you all? Hasn’t it been hot!?! I don’t enjoy being a black cat in the heat. I’m sure you’ve all been taking amazing care of your pets in this heat. We animals don’t deal with the heat as well as you humans, so it’s VERY important that you take extra extra special care of us in the heat. Keep us out of the sun in a nice shady spot, make sure we have plenty of water and NEVER NEVER EVER leave us in the car.

My star this week is the gorgeous Miss Patsy, a 6 1/2 year old Mini Schnauzer from Killara who came in to see Dr Scott Lackenby 2days before Christmas when she was having trouble urinating. It was a sudden onset of the problem and when Dr Scott examined her, Patsy’s temperature and other vitals were normal but she was painful in her tummy. After Dr Scott had felt her tummy, Patsy wee’d on the floor, which was actually great because we needed a urine sample! The wee was dark and cloudy and when Dr Scott had a look at the urine sample under the microscope he found lots of nasty bugs. Patsy had a UTI, or a urinary tract infection. I’ve never had one, but I’ve been told that they are very painful so Dr Scott gave Patsy an injection of pain relief and sent her home with some antibiotics. Patsy’s parents were given the number from our good friends at NEVS, (Northside Emergency Veterinary Service), just in case Patsy needed help over the Christmas public holidays, but to call us the next day if she wasn’t feeling a little better.

Patsy’s owners called Dr David Owen on Christmas Day. They had taken her to see our good friend at NEVS late on Christmas Eve when they were concerned she wasn’t improving. NEVS prescribed Patsy some anti inflammatory pain relief tablets to see if that made her more comfortable, but she still wasn’t herself. Dr David prescribed a second antibiotic so we could really knock the nasty bugs on the head.

Patsy ended up being admitted to NEVS on Christmas Day. An ultrasound was performed and she was diagnosed with bladder stones, and there was a concern that one of these stones had now blocked Patsy’s bladder. The ultrasonographer was also concerned that Patsy either had a mass or blood clots in her bladder as there was some dark shadows. Poor NEVS had been wanting to perform surgery on Patsy to remove the bladder stone, but they had been so terribly busy with Christmas emergencies that they didn’t have the staff or the time to do it. And that’s where we came back in! Patsy was transferred back to us on Boxing Day for surgery.

Dr John Morgan examined Patsy before starting surgery. Her vitals were good and Patsy was actually quite bright! NEVS had already started her on IV fluids, so Dr John was ready to start surgery. Dr John removed 15 stones, all around 1cm big from Patsy’s bladder.The wall of Patsy’s bladder was thickened and there were several blood clots. Dr John flushed Patsy’s bladder and then a special catheter was placed in Patsy’s bladder. This would give Patsy’s bladder a rest after a big surgery and it meant we could also monitor her urine output. Patsy made a good recovery from surgery and was given even more antibiotics! The stones were prepared to be sent away to a special laboratory so we could get them tested to find out exactly what caused them to form.

Patsy spent 3days in with us and during that time she had lots of pain relief and antibiotics and we monitored her urine production via the catheter Dr John placed in her bladder during surgery. It became a little tricky to check her urine when Patsy chewed out her bladder catheter, but she was managing to urinate all on her own, so she didn’t need it to go back in! Patsy was sent home with some special food that helps the bladder after surgery like this and once we get the results from the lab back about her stones, we would be able to work out a long term dietary management plan for Patsy.

Well, I had better go. I’m pretty sure I saw some left over cake from Nurse Brittany’s birthday yesterday. Stay cool everyone. Meows for now, love Joey xoxo