Scooter, 12 year old, male, Yorkshire terrier
Scooter came to see one of the vets, Sheryl, as his owner had noticed he was showing signs of difficulty in passing urine, and had seen some blood present. We ran a urine test, which confirmed this, but that everything else was normal. We treated him for cystitis over the next few days, but planned to X-ray his bladder if there was no significant improvement.
The owners were keen for us to do everything we could to find out what was wrong with Scooter, so when he returned to the practice, and further urinalysis still showed the presence of blood in his urine, we admitted him straight away.
First he had blood tests, which showed slight disturbances in his liver and kidney function. To ensure a safe anaesthetic for Scooter, we put him on a drip prior to anaesthetising him, and altered his anaesthetic regime to suit his needs.
We then took X-rays of his bladder, including a ‘pneumocystogram’, which is where we fill the bladder with air via a catheter, in order to get a clearer view of the stones, and visualise the lining of the bladder.

As you can see, he had 3 bladder stones present. To prevent further discomfort for Scooter, we operated on him the next day, (again supported by intra-venous fluids), to remove the stones by performing a ‘cystotomy’- an incision into the bladder.

The 3 stones under low power microscope


......... and on the bench (next to a ruler).

The stones were sent for analysis, so that we'd know what they were composed of, and would be able to prevent recurrence. Scooter was nursed by our team over the next 48 hours, who supplied him with rest, comfort, warmth, pain relief, fluids and nutrition, and lots of TLC! We were also watching how easily he could pass urine. His owner was able to visit him upstairs on ‘the pet ward’, much to both their joys!

Scooter recovered brilliantly, and was a very brave, lovable patient throughout.
He went home 2 days after his major surgery, and over the next week or so made a full recovery.

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