Postoperative Complications in a Great Dane Mix

Background

Two days before Christmas, Tundra underwent neuter and gastropexy surgery. He came home that night, but by the next morning, Tundra was bleeding excessively from his incision. So, on Christmas Eve, Tundra was rushed to the vet.

Tundra's pet parent, Kira, shares the full story:

"We rescued Tundra in November 2016. He is a sweet and gentle Blue Merle Great Dane mix who gets along great with our kids and our 3-year-old dog. As with all our rescues, we planned to get Tundra neutered. Bloat ( a.k.a. Gastric Dilatation Volvulus (GDV), a condition that occurs when the stomach flips over, twists, and expands trapping air and gases) is a top killer in large breeds, so we chose to have a gastropexy done during his neuter surgery.

We scheduled his neuter and gastropexy surgery for December 23rd, 2016, the week of his first birthday. Due to the Christmas holiday, we knew we would be home the following week to take care of him post-op. Little did we know how chaotic our Christmas holiday weekend was about to get.

Tundra's surgery went well and we brought him home that night. I stayed with him downstairs overnight as he was not allowed to climb stairs. Around 3 a.m. I woke up to check on him and saw spots of blood on his pet bed, but I wasn't overly concerned as the vet said this can happen, in large breeds especially. By morning though, around 7 a.m., a pool of blood formed under Tundra anywhere he would sit. The blood was not gushing, but we couldn't pinpoint exactly where in the incision the blood was seeping from. Regardless, this was not normal so we rushed him to our vet straight away. They ran some tests and couldn't conclusively determine where internally the blood was seeping from. So, on their recommendation, we rushed Tundra to VSEC (Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center) an hour away as they have a premium lab with highly-qualified and specialized doctors. At this point, he was hemorrhaging pools of blood from his abdominal incision at such a high rate that he was soaking through any bandages and blankets we had around him.

This was Christmas Eve. Tundra had to have another surgery that night to reopen his incision, locate the source of the bleed, and repair it. Long story short, the testicular internal sutures had come apart and blood was gushing from those arteries into his body cavity and seeping out through his abdominal incision. VSEC repaired those internal sutures, cleaned him up, and closed him up with another set of external sutures. Tundra now had a 6-8 inch incision and I can only imagine how sore he was. He stayed overnight at VSEC and we picked him up on Christmas day, a couple hours before family arrived for Christmas dinner.

Tundra has recovered beautifully and is now back to his happy self. We are so glad to have Embrace as Tundra's pet insurance. We were only 2 months into our policy when Tundra's post-op bleeding complications occurred. Although his neuter and gastropexy surgery was not covered as it is considered preventative care, Embrace was there for us through Tundra's emergency bleeding complications. Minus our annual deductible and our 10% copay, Embrace reimbursed us all of VSEC's surgical costs and they handled our claim within 3 weeks.

Thank you Embrace, for being there and giving us peace of mind that financially you had our back! Every customer service representative I have talked with regarding this, or anything else for that matter, has been extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. We truly appreciate you and my Tundra thanks you! I was so pleased and happy with Embrace and how they handled Tundra's situation that I switched our other dog from her pet insurance to Embrace right away."