Poppys Blood Transfusion

This is Poppy who came into us one weekend at the end of March as she was very poorly. She was extremely lethargic, off her food and vomiting.

Initial blood tests showed that Poppy was very anaemic (low levels of red blood cells). We stabilised her overnight whilst trying to establish the cause of the anaemia. Unfortunately her situation worsened overnight and her red blood cell count dropped further.

At this stage it was necessary to perform a blood transfusion to give poppy a fighting chance of recovery. Luckily we had a blood type match that we could call called Oscar, a very friendly Labrador belonging to one of our vets. He was the perfect blood donor and the transfusion ran smoothly. By this stage we had the more extensive results through from the external lab which revealed that poppy was suffering from immune mediated haemolytic anaemia, a process where the body destroys its own red blood cells for no known reason.

She is currently on treatment for this and is recovering well. This is her relaxing by the fire at home!

Posted 14th April 2018