A six-year-old dog named Woody has just earned a new lease on life, thanks to a rare type of brain surgery performed by veterinarians in Portland, Oregon.
Surgeons at DoveLewis Animal Hospital conducted the surgery to remove a tumor in Woody’s skull. The complicated procedure took several hours to complete but was a success. And Woody has since recuperated well enough to get back to his daily walks.
“The post-op recovery really takes a whole lot of people to work together, and watching him very closely, and to have a [committed] owner have the team to support his post-op and have him coming back for a recheck all these are necessary components for his success of outcome,” John Du, a neurosurgeon at DoveLewis, told local media outlet KATU Monday.
Rare and complex
Woody’s owners first suspected something was wrong with Woody last summer when he began stumbling on stairs and hesitating before jumps. By November, doctors at DoveLewis had identified the cause: a bone tumor pressing up against his brain.
Brain surgeries are some of the hardest procedures to perform in humans, and they can be even more challenging in dogs. The brain and skull structure of a dog can vary dramatically depending on its breed, and dogs tend to have thicker muscles on their head than humans do, further complicating any incisions. So the surgery that saved Woody’s life was no easy feat, according to his doctors.
“The major risk we were worried about was the tumor was very close to a few major blood vessels around the skull and it took about four to six hours, I believe, in total to be removed safely,” Du told KATU.
Still, the procedure—which included rebuilding part of Woody’s skull with a titanium mesh—went well without any serious hitches. Woody was carefully monitored afterward but was on his feet and able to go back home by day three. Now he’s back to his old self, walking every day and playing with his brother.
Woody’s tumor isn’t completely gone, unfortunately, but his doctors say it’s a slow-growing tumor. With ongoing monitoring and care, the family is hopeful that Woody will have many more years of life left.
This isn’t the only complex canine surgery that doctors at DoveLewis have performed as of late. Last March, they successfully removed a large brain tumor from Tuba, a 7-year-old Boxer.
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