The tracheostomy was not working as it was meant to, and something needed to be done. We desperately wanted to avoid more surgery, but at the same time we didn't want Heidi going through all the stress and pain of the operations to date for nothing. We wanted something to keep the hole open without Heidi going under the knife again.
And it was whilst debating what could be done about the situation that an idea came to us. Flesh tunnels. The very same ones that people use to stretch their ear-piercing holes. We E-mailed the specialists with our idea, hoping that something like this was already being used as a stoma, and perhaps Heidi could have it done too. It turns out that she would be the first, and that they would in fact use silicon flesh tunnels!
She would still have to have more anesthetic, but they would just stretch the hole, put the flesh tunnel in, and put in a few stitches around the edge to keep it in place.
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| Dog Tracheostomy. |
The white ring you can see is the outer flange of the flesh tunnel, which I will now refer to as the Stoma. Cleaning the stoma now is so much easier, as nothing will stick to silicon, we simply wipe it out with a damp cotton bud, and use a cotton disc to clean around it. Her breathing is so much better, there have been no more fainting spells since having it done.
