The Surgery and After

I completely forgot to mention that before we wanted to go through the agony of making the decision to amputate or not I wanted to get the lung x-ray done to see if it had already spread. If it had, we knew it was too late and if not, we would schedule the surgery. On our way to the vet just a few blocks from our house a dog came bolting down the sidewalk with their owner not far behind, it was a tripawd 🙂 He looked so happy and was running so fast it was amazing!

My husband said, “That’s a sign if I’ve ever seen one that we are going to get good news today”, and we did!

Fast forward a few days to her surgery – It was a bit longer than what I anticipated, about 4 hours! Our vet told us we would be taking her home the same day…. I hadn’t seen anyone post anything about taking them home the day of surgery but our vet said that she was going to be uncomfortable regardless so he’d rather have them be at home. They made sure she was stable before we went to pick her up and she hopped out to meet us when we got there! Definitely groggy from the anesthesia but happy to be on her way home. The first night wasn’t fun, period. Looking back on it I’m glad she was at home with us instead of at the vet, even though it was pretty hard. We got her to lay down within a few minutes and she slept for about 1/2 an hour and then started pacing and whining and would not lay down, the cone didn’t help either 🙁

Since the surgery took longer she did come home with a bandage, only to cover lidocaine patches around the incision that the vet felt she needed since it took so long. Even though she was stressed out by the cone we kept it on her 24/7 for the 3 days after the surgery because of how toxic the patches are and to make sure she didn’t consume one of them. After the 3rd day we took the patches off and from then on we ended up leaving the cone off most of the time. As long as we were right there in case she went after the incision, otherwise even leaving her for more than a minute we would put the cone on and always at night. We ended up getting an inflatable one and that worked SO much better as she had her peripheral vision back and I think that was her biggest issue with it in general.

She had a little swelling and we iced a few times for about 2 days and really went down quick. We used a regular hot/cold pack for the main part of the incision and for the more sensitive end area by her tail we found that freezing a damp washcloth worked great, it wasn’t too cold and was easily molded to fit the area. She had her surgery on a Thursday and she woke us up for her first poop at 2am on Sunday 🙂

Stitches were out 2 weeks later (3/23/17) and she had her first chemo yesterday – more on that next time.

<3 Amy & Doxie

First night after surgery
Two days after surgery
Two days after surgery

 

2 thoughts on “The Surgery and After

  1. It sounds like you’ve had a fairly smooth recovery!! I’m so happy for you!! 😊☀️
    And what a nice sign to see a tripawd on the way to such an important appointment!!
    We’re holding all fingers and remaining paws crossed that you’ll sail through chemo equally well!!
    Keep us updated!
    tina & Manni

  2. WOW! Seeing a tripawd hopping along just fine right before Doxie’s surgery was a sign indeed!! 🙂

    And I have to give yiu a standing ovation for bringing yiur sweet Doxie home the same day if the surgery!! WOW!! I K KW thst must have been so hard! I brought my Happy Hannah (a Bull Mastiff) home after she spent the ight at the 24 hr clinic and she whined and was restless the WHOLD night! It was just awful!! And it wasn’t much better the next night and day either!!

    I’m just sooooo glad the recovery, especially the first several nights, had no crisis crop up! And Doxie is such a LARGE gal too!! 🙂

    You and your hubby, as well as Doxie, are quite brave Souls! You all are doing an outstanding job!! 🙂 You clearly have shown Doxie through your confident and positive energy that she can handle any burdle thrown her way!!! 🙂

    Looking forward to more great updates AND great pictures of this GREAT dog! 🙂

    Hugs to all! 🙂

    Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *