Its messy at times, not only will you have the usual wound care to deal with, but mucus on top of that. We also had some issues with acid reflux from her stomach in the beginning. I wanted to make this blog mainly to address the cleaning aspects, as this was what we were most worried about, practically speaking.
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| Dog Tracheotomy |
We were doing it every two-three hours day and night, for the first week. We used damp cotton discs (squeezed of excess water) and cotton buds (Q-tips) dipped in plain water. We were advised to use the cotton-bud to actually push into the hole as this would help it stay open. There is a chance of it healing closed, although we were told that 30% reduction in size was to be expected although Heidi's hole did in fact close too small, and went back for a revision of her Stoma. See 'The Stoma' page.
I was using a lot of cotton discs and buds, maybe up to 10 of each per cleaning in the beginning to give you an idea. Some 'cleanings' we were dealing with maybe a good tea-spoons worth of coughed up mucus, and when this dries it dries hard, so keeping on top of this is better than having to dab away at a large hunk of this stuff later on. We also used her poo-bags as little bins for all the used discs/buds.
Cleanings got to be needed less often as the stoma healed, and we were getting to a point of only needing to do it three times a day, morning, noon and last thing at night. I found two ways which I liked to do the cleanings: My husband would hold her with one arm between both sets of legs, so she was sort of laying like a lion on a branch, steadying her back with his other arm....whilst I went at the cleaning before his arms got too tired! (This was was best when she didn't really want to be cleaned as I could hover below her stoma and clean it without having to lift her chin if it was sore) And the other way was to just let her sit on a cushion on the couch, and I would sit in front of her on the floor and use one hand to encourage her chin up while I dabbed and swabbed the stoma, and this place got to be her regular cleaning place where I had a little 'cleaning station' set up with everything I needed already there.
My Pug is a very good girl, and will sit still for me when i clean her, so I am able to give her Stoma a gentle thorough cleaning each time. Hopefully you will also be blessed with a good patient. (I only mention this in case I'm making it all sound very simple, as for us, it was and I don't want to imply that it will be the same for everyone.)
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| Dog Tracheostomy |
Something which we have found to be helpful is to have all the cleaning gear in a small fold out tool box/art box style thing, so that all the bits and bobs were instantly to hand. As when you are mid clean with a cranky dog and you suddenly need a pair of tweezers or want more cotton buds, it makes it a much smoother operation to have the lot there, instead of scattered about the house. This also makes it easy to take it all with you if you go somewhere with your dog and to see when you are running low on items.
