Hydronephrosis
Today while reading Vetting: The Making of a Veterinarian by Dr. Pete Freyburger I learned about Hydronphrosis and I thought it was very interesting so I thought I would share some knowledge from the book and further research I did.
A small kitten that they named squeaky came in with a "grossly distended abdomen" aka a bloated stomach. They gave squeaky a x-ray to see exactly what was going on and found a liquid in what looked like to be in a round ball shape the size of a tennis ball. He felt uneasy about it so he took her in to surgery as soon as possible and got some fluid out with needle to test it. As he tried to drain the fluid out he realized she had Hydronephrosis. He described hydronephrosis as a "extremely rare condition" in which something is blocking urine from leaving the kidney. After reading about it wondered if it could happen in humans too so I did some research and it turns out it can. The main difference is in animals it mainly happens by a surgeon accidentally tying off one of the ureters during a spay. A ureters is a duct where urine passes from the kidney to the bladder. Human hydronephrosis is caused by kidney stones, tumors, or even an infection. But back to squeaky he ended up removing her kidney and because she was so young and small they didn't expect her to live through the night in fact he said "squeaky would no doubt die quietly during the night" which saddened him but he knew he did all he could. However, the next morning when we went to work one of his veterinary assistant told him that squeaky was not only alive but eating! Her owners picked her up and within 10 days she was fully healed and seemed twice as big which was a good thing considering the state she came in.
A small kitten that they named squeaky came in with a "grossly distended abdomen" aka a bloated stomach. They gave squeaky a x-ray to see exactly what was going on and found a liquid in what looked like to be in a round ball shape the size of a tennis ball. He felt uneasy about it so he took her in to surgery as soon as possible and got some fluid out with needle to test it. As he tried to drain the fluid out he realized she had Hydronephrosis. He described hydronephrosis as a "extremely rare condition" in which something is blocking urine from leaving the kidney. After reading about it wondered if it could happen in humans too so I did some research and it turns out it can. The main difference is in animals it mainly happens by a surgeon accidentally tying off one of the ureters during a spay. A ureters is a duct where urine passes from the kidney to the bladder. Human hydronephrosis is caused by kidney stones, tumors, or even an infection. But back to squeaky he ended up removing her kidney and because she was so young and small they didn't expect her to live through the night in fact he said "squeaky would no doubt die quietly during the night" which saddened him but he knew he did all he could. However, the next morning when we went to work one of his veterinary assistant told him that squeaky was not only alive but eating! Her owners picked her up and within 10 days she was fully healed and seemed twice as big which was a good thing considering the state she came in.
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| Not squeaky's x-ray but this is similar to what he would've seen. |
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