Emergency Surgery 

Last night Ladybug was sent to the OR for emergency surgery to fix a bowel obstruction. 

Monday started like any other day. Ladybug woke up and was her typical happy, chatty self. By Monday evening it was like someone flicked a switch. She began vomiting and not keeping anything down. I thought it was odd that she has a tummy bug as she wasn’t really around anyone but us, and there were no previous symptoms – but still started her tummy bug protocol of continuous Pedialyte feeds at a very low rate and gravol. 

For some reason the gravol wasn’t helping so I tried a different means of giving it to her to make sure she didn’t throw it up. 

By Wednesday her spit up became non stop and was dark brown. That bright red flag appeared and I went into prepare for a long hospital stay mode. 

We arrived at the hospital during what I call the magical hours. The ER is usually pretty empty – this was entirely planned.  (Not my first rodeo) 

Rebuilding fluids were top priority then the focus was finding out why she was spitting up such yucky stuff, why no bm in the past few days and why low grade fever. 

X-rays and ultrasound showed distended bowels. (Air in the bowels) Which was most likely caused by a blockage. 

Ladybug went into surgery at 23:00 Thursday night and they finished 01:30 this morning. Her bowel got caught up and tangled in a band of scar tissue from her previous bowel resection in 2010. Thankfully the surgical team were able to fix and save her bowel and no resection was needed this time. There is a risk of this happening again, but at least I’ll know the warning signs right away. 

She is on oxygen and resting nicely. Her kidneys are not working very well though, so fluid will be increased to try and jump start them.

We will be here for a while, but that’s ok. Ladybug is a fighter and she will be better in no time.