This one was a surprise. Stella’s had more than her fair share of medical issues. Between her BOAS surgery, her IVDD and other various issues, we were really hoping she was over any major medical emergencies.
A few months ago Stella became really sick with a pyometra – This is essentially a womb infection and can be life threatening under certain circumstances. The cure for this is an emergency spay, so I’m just going to talk about the process we went through here.
Not getting Stella spayed – A quick history
When we first got Stella we were insistent on getting her spayed as soon as we could. She’s a puppy farm rescue and had been bred twice already being only two years old. Horrible stuff. So we wanted to make sure she wasn’t having any more litters and entering in to a full retirement with us.
We took Stella to get spayed, but because her breathing was so bad when we first adopted her, the vets would not spay her until after she had BOAS surgery, so we got that done. Sadly her breathing is still pretty bad when she’s stressed or over exerted.
Even with Boas surgery, our local vets would not spay her, and we were told we could get her spayed at the specialist Vet’s Now in Bury. There was some back and forth on this and ultimately we decided that the risk wasn’t worth it and we chose not to get Stella spayed.
Prometra – The signs
It happened shortly after Stella had been in season, maybe a week after she came off her cycle? We’d noticed that she’d been looking a little bloated, and was suffering from what seemed to be constipation. Aside from that she seemed perfectly fine – she was eating and drinking plenty, playing and walking as normal, there was no major indiction of a bigger issue, so we were keeping an eye on her assuming she had some sort of tummy bug.
It is worth mentioning that this lasted about a week and towards the end of that week she did start peeing indoors and drinking A LOT. Which was odd. I was getting close to asking a vet about it at this point but we still weren’t sure if there was anything more than a bit of a funny tummy going on.
Open Pyometra
Warning – This is where it gets graphic. The weekend after we’d noticed Stella being a bit off, I was on a call with some friends, and Stella was sleeping in the living room on the couch. My call ended after an hour or so and I walked in to the living room to a horrible Cooper smell.
Stella was seemingly bleeding profusely from her vagina, all over the couch. Queue immediate call to the vets. I explained to them what was happening, and the fact that she’d been a little funny all week; they immediately knew what the issue was.
Stella had a womb infection, pyometra. There are two types of pyometra: An open one (where the pus and blood from the infection leaks out) and a closed one (where it does not). An open pyometra, which Stella now had, was FAR less lethal than the closed one which can kill a dog in a matter of days, so we’re incredibly lucky for that.
It was pretty gross I’m not gonna lie – the living room stank of copper and infection. But it was better that all that infected matter was leaving her body. There was so much of it, it was terrifying.
Vet Visits
We took her to Vets Now in Preston, as this was our most local one at the time, and a lady called Beth saw her. She was amazing, Stella was nappied up, looking like something from a horror movie, and we were panicked. Beth was calm, reassuring and honestly made me feel so much better because when I saw how much Stella was ‘bleeding’ I thought she was done for.
The aforementioned ‘blood’ was barely blood at all in fact, it was mostly pus, and it was a very, very good thing that it was leaving her body. It meant she was not critical and in need of an operation right there and then.
Beth gave us antibiotics, painkillers and told us to book in a spay with the specialists at Vets Now in Bury. We know the team there fairly well and whilst we’d thought we could manage without having her spayed, it was not vital that she was and she couldn’t have been in better hands.
Surgery
Stella went in for her spay the Monday morning after that horrendous weekend. Her discharge had stopped a lot by then thankfully, so we could manage her symptoms until the surgery time.
As always, it’s really scary when Stella goes under because she’s high risk on the breathing front. The good news is that it’s kind of balanced out with how healthy is she in other ways – her weight, diet and energy make her generally really healthy for a seven year old Frenchie.
Stella aced the surgery and we were able to pick her up less than six hours after admitting her.
Aftercare
Stella had a huge row of stitches all down her belly, pretty standard for a spay to be honest. Her recovery was just like any other spay, and bed rest was vital.
We kept Stella in her crate, and the Vets recommended this MPS bodysuit to keep her from scratching or licking her stitches. We ended up buying two because she needed to wear it for a week and we needed to keep her as dry and clean as possible during this time.
Keeping a dog as energetic as Stella on bed rest is flippin’ hard. So the vet prescribed her some trazodone for the first week.
The high risk times for spay stitches to break is in the first five days, but honestly it felt like it could have happened at any point up until seven days after when we could visibly see some healing starting to happen.
We had a checkup after a week and she was healing nicely, we’d honestly kept her in her crate as much as possible, only letting her our to pee, and most importantly – we did not let her jump at all. So she passed with flying colours on the healing front.
How much did Pyometra Surgery Cost?
All in all the surgery was around £5,000 – this includes the two visits we had to the emergency vets out of hours for the issue, we’re still waiting for a final statement but our claim with Co-operative Pet Insurance went through just fine.
How is Stella doing now?
Honestly I was a little worried that her personality would change after the spay – but it hasn’t at all. she was very clingy after we initially let her our of her crate, but she was soon back to normal after.
Full recovery from the surgery is ongoing, as the knot of the stitch takes longer to fully dissolve, but I would say Stella was, for the most part, fully recovered after two weeks. You can still see the scar quite clearly, but it looks a LOT better than what it did!
And that’s the story of Stella’s pyometra, can we please have no more medical emergencies?