Standing tall and looking for love (photo taken 2-9-2009)

Hello my name is Finnegan.

I’m an 8 month old pug and this is my story.

Thursday Feb 5, I was turned over to the care of Pug Rescue because my owner could not afford to give me needed surgery because I had eaten something which lodged in my stomach, then moved into my intestine. I could not eat, I became emaciated.......... and I was dying!

Friday Feb 6, I was taken to Banfield Animal Hospital where they confirmed the blockage and highly recommended surgery or I would die. After a long surgery the Dr. removed a piece of cloth that had in fact moved into my intestine and started to decay, rot and grow into me. Because of this he had to remove all but about 8 inches of my small intestine because they were so bad. That evening my foster dad picked me up and transferred me to a 24 hour hospital so they could keep watch over me to be sure the surgery went well. I looked good all things considered. They gave me IV’s and medicines’.

Saturday Feb 7, they gave me a little slurry mix to see if I could eat, that did not go well. I started to get sicker, my protein levels in my blood started dropping more. They gave me some medicines’ to help did not work well. That evening they gave me a plasma transfusion it worked a little but it was determined that I must have a leak in the remainder of my intestine it was a very rough night.

Sunday Feb 8, very early in the am the Dr’s decided that I needed to have another emergency surgery to find out what was going on, so they did and found a small intestinal leak that was causing the problem. They fixed it, this was more that the original surgeon found and repaired. As the day went on I was feeling a little better still not up to par.

Monday Feb 9, as the day went on still not holding food down vomited a couple times. That afternoon my proteins went down again to the point that I needed a whole blood transfusion. My foster brother Duke Codling gave me a pint of his blood, boy it must have been good because I started feeling better and my protein levels came up. Ate a little and mostly kept it down.

Tuesday Feb 10, the hospital called my foster dad and said I could leave. Then this other Dr. came and checked me out and said the same thing. But before my foster dad could get there I started vomiting again so they kept me a little longer to be sure I was ok. I have to eat real slowly and that slurry stuff was the problem. I was standing up and barking, they let me out and walked around I was feeling good.

Wednesday Feb 11, no new changes they did a Barium Swallow x-ray that showed I was indeed digesting my food but it was moving slow through my system, But they gave me dry food thinking that would help soak up the fluids in my stomach and I kept the food down. It worked so they let me go to my foster home where they will keep an eye on me till I get better.

It is going to be a long recovery for me and the Dr’s will need to keep close tabs on my protein and Albumin levels as I will probably have a form of diarrhea for ever due to loss of so much of my intestine. If all goes well they said in 6 month I should be ok for neuter.

This has been very costly to the Rescue group so any donations are greatly needed so that others can be helped just as I have been and it’s not over yet.

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Revised: 06/03/10.