Patient Story – Dizzy

Dizzy came to see us a few weeks ago as she wasn’t quite her usual bouncy self.

Initially she appeared to have a sore back, but over the course of the day her breathing grew steadily worse. X-rays showed that there was a pneumothorax on both sides of her chest. This is when air leaks into the space between the lung and the chest wall, squashing the lungs down and making it difficult to breathe. This can occur after trauma such as a road traffic accident, but in Dizzy’s case there was no history at all of any trauma.

Dizzy was stabilised here by draining more than 5 litres of air from her chest cavity, before she was sent as an emergency referral to the Ralph Veterinary Centre.

In total, Dizzy was there for more than a week, having chest drains placed and various procedures to try to seal her lungs. Unfortunately the air was still leaking, so Dizzy then required a major chest surgery to remove some abnormal parts of her lung that had burst and were leaking air.

Throughout it all, and despite being very ill, Dizzy was an absolute superstar and very brave! She has recovered well and we were thrilled to see her back and looking so bright.