**Warning, the pictures on this page are graphic.
May 2012, Arlette, was bit by possibly a hobo spider. She was nursing her babies at the time who were about 4 weeks old. The day started like any other, we got up, I checked her teats, put her out to potty, she fed her babies a little (they were starting to wean), then she went out to potty again. I made “puppy mush” to complete their morning feeding. Arlette was really adamant about visiting with her sister, so I put her out with her sister Dreamy. I brought her in about an hour later. I noticed that she was uncomfortable, panting like crazy, then I looked at her teats again. The back two on the left side were red, hard and hot…… I immediately started to strip them, but could barely get any milk out. Within a few minutes, we were on our way to the vet. Once at the vet, it became very apparent that something was drastically wrong. Her teats had swollen, they were very hot to the touch and they were dark, dark red. The vet said they would warm and cold compress her to help with what they thought was mastitis. I left her at the vet, came home, took care of babies, took care of Artemis who was going thru Chemo at the time. Next morning, I was at the vet when they opened. I was not prepared for what I saw..
Her teats were purple and had a few blisters on them! Arlette was on IV fluids, loads of antibiotics and getting round the clock care. The vets told us that they would probably need to do a mastectomy to remove the effected teats, but that they wanted to wait to see if it would get better. By day 3, the nipples had turned black, and there was lots of necrotic tissue. Day 4, the vets did a radical mastectomy, removing the two back teats. They removed over 6 pounds of necrotic tissue. They sent some out for histopathology which came back with spider venom and a flesh eating bacteria. During this surgery, they also discovered that the artery leading to this teat quadrant was extremely damaged, it had a clot in it a few inches inches long, this is possibly where the bite happened, and it blocked all blood flow to the mammary. She was able to come home on day 5 and we used t-shirts to keep her covered. The incision line went all the way from her sternum to her vulva. But, there was a small area near the vulva where the suture line was not holding well.
Arlette was home for 3 days when the suture line fell apart completely. I had taken her out to potty and as she squatted, I heard the pop, pop, pop of the suture line coming completely undone and then all the drains fell out. I put a clean t-shirt on her and headed back to the vet. They did another surgery to debride the area again and attempt to suture her closed, but the sutures would not hold, there was not enough skin. One of our vets, Dr. Barry, came up with the most ingenious plan. With the help of one tech and some lidacane, Dr. Barry put around the large wound area what he called “stay sutures”, loops of suture material around the opening that he could then lace closed. Arlette was completely still for this and gave the tech kisses as Dr. Barry went to work on her. Once the stay sutures were in, he made a packing material to pack the wound (horse cotton pack, extra large wound bandages, used Umbilical tape to “lace” her up like a corset.
At first, we were having the vet change the packing ever other day, then we started doing it ourselves as Arlette was an amazing patient, would just roll over and give you kisses the whole time. We would remove lacing and packing, clean her with alternating scrubs (chlorhexadine one day, then the next cleaning a betadine scrub), then make a new “pack (horse cotton sheeting, extra large “steripads” from the medical supply store). We would coat these with Silver Sulfaoxide (which by the way, if your allergic to sulfa, do NOT use this product, I learned the hard way), or Nitrofurazone. Eventually, after discovering my allergy to the Silver Sulfa, we started using Scarlet Oil. These worked fantastic.
She was loaded up on antibiotics until completely closed. She was on not only Cephalexin, but Cipro as well and of course, Tramadol for pain. Within a week or so, we had down our routine and she did extremely well. Here are the resulting pictures.
Arlette was such a trooper through the whole ordeal. We had difficulty at first with t-shirts, tank tops trying to get them to fit her right to keep her clean. Eventually, I went to my local Ross Dress for Less and purchased a bunch of womans large and xlarge spandex/cotton racer back Tanks. Then I got some little clips and made an elastic strap that we would clip on the bottom of the tanks to strap it across her chest. Worked fantastic. Here are some of her fashions:o)
Finally, all healed!
This bite happened at the begining of May 2012, she was completely healed by mid August 2012. It was a long process, but my girl is better and is doing great. In 2015, Arlette actually competed at the Breed National Specialty show and not only did she win Best Veteran in Sweepstakes, she also won Best Veteran in Specialty Show.