Introducing Jestah :-) Doing what he does best...chilling out and sleeping. He's my 12 and 1/2 year old border collie. Retired from agility and obedience, currently enjoying a relaxing lifestyle. For the past twelve months he has been treated for chronic bronchitis. Over the last several months he has been slowly deteriorating. Coughing and wheezing more, our once hour walks were now reduced to a 5min walk to a tree where he could sit down and watch, while I ran and played with Epic.2 weeks ago (on a particularly hot day) he seemed to crash. He was really struggling to breath and we rushed him into work for some oxygen and a steroid injection to try and reduce the inflamation in his lungs. During that week he was taken into work 3 more times....each time worse than the previous. The vets started to prepare me for the fact that we had tried everything and over the weekend I needed to think of his quality of life :-(
Monday morning (after a particularly bad night for Jestah) I went to work completely devastated having made the decision to have him put to sleep.....and it was then I was given a little ray of hope....by one of our vets Louise Duval who thought outside the square. She said "I wonder what Laryngeal Paralysis looks like?" and that set the ball rolling....she got her medical books out and I jumped on the internet and to our amazement Jestah had every symptom!!
Tues morning he went and saw Anna Tebb an internal medicine specialist who seemed quite confident that it was this diagnosis, so he stayed for a few hours to have an ultrasound to try and confirm it. Unfortunately the test was inconclusive :-(
He was booked back in on Thurs to have a light anaesthetic and together Anna Tebb and Tim Caporn (specialist surgeon) looked down his throat and thankfully confirmed Laryngeal Paralysis. I was over the moon!! He had a diagnosis that could be treated with an operation.
I dropped him off the very next day where he underwent the Laryngeal Tyeback surgery. What a long day.....everytime the phone rang I raced to pick it up, worried out of my mind about whether he was going to be okay. At 4.10pm I received the call I was waiting for...."Jestah has had his surgery, and touch wood, so far everything has gone really well"
Today is Saturday....the very day after his major surgery....and he is currently sleeping under the dining room table, breathing lovely, deep, peaceful breaths.
I'm so thankful I'm a vet nurse and was able to take him home so early.
And words cannot express how grateful I am to Louise, Anna and Tim who have given me the greatest gift possible.....the life of my best friend....
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