KILEY

KILEY

Meet the newest member of our LDR family. This is Kiley and she is a 1 1/2 pound, 9 week old, female Maltese. Today, Dr. Peth, from Arbor Animal Hospital, checked her out, and diagnosed a possible/probable PDA. A PDA, in layman's terms, is a hole in her heart, a hole that should have closed when she was born.

Tuesday Sept. 29, we will visit with Dr. Joshua Jackson from Veterinary Specialty Hospital in San Marcos. We'll see what he has to say.

If you'd like to read more about other PDA puppies we've had, please go to our "Sick Bay" page and read about Ticker and Jackson pages. Also, go to our "Sofia's Journey" page.

Kiley has absolutely NO idea that anything is wrong with her. She's happy, silly, very playful, and honestly believes that everyone was placed on this earth to play with her and give her kisses.

We'll keep you posted.

UPDATE Tuesday 9/29

We took Kiley to Dr Jackson of Veterinary Specialty Hospital in San Marcos today. An echocardiogram was performed and Kiley has been diagnosed with PDA, a hole in her heart. If she does not have surgery, she will not see her first birthday. Thankfully, catching it early in her life, she has no damage to her heart.

For those of you who are more medically inclined, we thought you'd be interested in Kiley's echocardiogram. The black and white picture is the heart, the color pictures indicate flow through the heart. In a normal heart the color should be a solid blue. The rainbow colors indicate that the flow is turbulent and is indicative (with a 99% probability) that Kiley has a PDA."

It was decided that she would spend the night at the hospital and will have heart surgery tomorrow morning, Wed. 9/30. IF Kiley survives the surgery and has no bleeding from the heart within 48 hours of the surgery, she will be 100% fixed, since she has no damage to her heart. Dr. Jackson has performed this surgery for us twice previously, and we have complete confidence in his abilities. I will have to say, that as the Mommy of a 1 1/2 pound baby, I'm very frightened. She's just the tiniest little girl and so very very fragile, although you'd better not tell her that!!! She considers herself a tiger!!

Surgery will be at about 11 AM and last for approximately 2 hours, so please say a little prayer for our girl. We'll keep the website updated and hopefully have some pictures of her surgery.

Please send healing thoughts. We'll let you know as soon as we get word from Dr. Jackson.

Sleep well, tonight, Dr. Jackson!

7 PM
Just got a call from Julie, Dr. Jackson's tech. Kiley has been doing well. She's been carried around most of the day, is eating, drinking, sleeping and playing. She will call us just before they begin the surgery, in the morning. We'll keep you posted.

12:15 Update

Just talked to Catherine, one of the techs. She said that Kiley has her catheter in and they're expected to begin surgery at about 1 o'clock. They will call me as they start. She said that Kiley's doing great.....eating, drinking last time at 9 AM and playing LOTS. Even as they inserted her catheter, she said her tail was wagging.
We'll keep you posted.

2:20 PM

Just got a call from Julie. They've just moved Kiley into surgery. They will call us as soon as she's into recovery. About 2 hours. Please say an extra little prayer for our baby. She's just so tiny and I'm a very worried Mom.
Godspeed.
Steady hands, Dr. Jackson.

As soon as we get word, we'll post the results.

3:30 PM

She's FIXED and she survived!!! Dr. Jackson just called and said she's still cold but they're warming her up and her heart is fixed!! As long as there's no bleeding and she does well, there' s a possibility that she may be able to come home tomorrow. She'll be very carefully monitored for the next 24 hours. WOO HOO!!! We're ecstatic!!!

Thank you all for your love and prayers.
We'll keep you posted. WOO HOO!!!!!

11 PM Update

Kiley is resting comfortably. Still has the catheter in , but has eaten and had a bit to drink, so the catheter will be removed in the AM if all continues to go well. Dr. Jackson will call us in the AM.

Thursday AM

Got the BEST call from the hospital. Kiley's doing GREAT and is coming home today. We're heading for San Diego this afternoon. Isn't it amazing. Heart surgery and imminent death one day and home the next day, a healthy girl.

Thursday PM

Kiley is HOME!!!She's eating, drinking and although tired and still in pain, her little tail never stops wagging.

Kiley's Incision

Here she is in her jacket designed and fabricated by our dear friend, Sally Stack, to keep her from her incision. It's made of a very lightweight gauze material, with two armholes so that there's no slippage, and it velcros at the top for easy "insertion". So clever that Sally!! At the hospital, they would normally put an e-collar on a dog, but this dog is as big as a bird, so what do you do??? HMMM, they considered creative/alternative medicine....HMMMM...maybe a coffee cup!!!!
Thank you, Sally!!

Here are a few pictures of Kiley's surgery.

Dr. Jackson with Kiley

Saturday Update

Kiley is doing so well today. She is still limping a bit on her left front leg. This is because in order to get to her heart, Dr. Jackson had to separate her ribs and she's SORE, as you can imagine. But, it should feel better in a few days. It's not so sore that it's stopping her from trying to kill her toys.

As you can well imagine, we have received many applications for this little sweetheart. What we hadn't expected, was receiving applications for our good Dr. Jackson and his "baby blues"!!!! We'll be going through the applications for Kiley in about 2 weeks. Applications for Dr. Jackson should be submitted in person (to him). :-))))

Update Tuesday Oct. 6

Kiley is "locked and loaded", so to speak. Loaded with energy, playfulness and very sharp little puppy teeth!! And I'm her playmate!!! OUCH!! Nothing is stopping her from being an energetic, silly little girl. She LOVES all her toys but more than anything, she loves to play with my hand. She's also doing well with her piddle pad training.

She's eating like a horse, and she's put on an ounce, which is quite a big deal when you weigh only 1 1/2 pounds. Being the wickedly protective parents that we are, we are not ready to place this little treasure. Until she's a little bigger, she needs to be fed every couple of hours and kept warm, and it's very hard not being so protective.