This past Saturday January 21st, Nico underwent surgery for his congenital brain malformation, known as Chiari malformation.
This is the first time in history that an operation of this type was done on a primate and not a human. In the first hours of the morning, we were already getting ready at Mona, and we arrived at the Canis veterinary clinic, in Girona, before 10. The neurosurgeons Dr.Rimbau and Dr.Lafuente and their team were waiting for us there. The surgery lasted a little bit over two hours and everything went smoothly. However, after the surgery Nico suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest. During several minutes, doctors, vets and anesthetists fought to bring Nico back to life and succeeded in reanimating him. That same day, when we were sure he was okay we brought him back to Mona. After spending the night under the careful watch of Olga Feliu, Nico started responding to stimuli in the next morning. Nico was discoordinated, but thanks to Dr.Rimbau’s check up visit we learned that it was normal after such surgery. He will spend the next few days and nights under supervision as the post surgery phase is the most critical one. We will keep you posted!