Dandy's Surgery

Today was the day of reckoning for Dandy. She had surgery on her very damaged and broken nose. It had pretty much been evulsed..the whole nose was forced up and back exposing the nasal cavity as you can see in this before picture. That is the actual position the nose was stuck in.

A big dead section of the nasal septum was removed. The right side damage was less than the left. Here the Dr. is stitching the nose back down over the nasal cavity, securing it to the gums to hold it down.

The left side was worse. Here you can see the nasal cavity still exposed. Where his finger is part of the jaw had chipped off, like a flake of ice, so there was no gum tissue to secure the nose to. He got creative and actually stitched the nose down with a mattress stitch down around and between the teeth (like flossing).

And finally after it all, she still has a permanent snarl, but much better! You can actually see her eyes with the snout pulled back into place!

We have to hope the stitches hold, and a lot of other things too! But the Dr. is optimistically hopeful. So now we wait and see, and hopefully with a lot of TLC she will pull through and be well enough to release back into the wild again. As long as everything works well, the deformity is not an issue. She was still eating and drinking perfectly well before the surgery which is a good sign as well.

I am ETERNALLY GRATEFUL to my vets for taking the time and putting the effort into helping her....words cannot describe! THANK YOU!