I’ve spoken to the doc in the ICU twice more today. She decided to leave the IV in long enough to do one more local anesthetic (sp?) dose and has only just pulled the catheter. He is still handling the pain meds just fine. He is able to get up on his own, with some encouragment. He made it out to the garden in the hospital, but seems reluctant to go very far.
They want to give him another night under supervised care and make sure he is going to do fine without the local IV drip at the incision site. I want to make sure he is ready to come home. It isn’t worth the risk to me to bring him home early and have him fall, not yet. But I know it is coming and we are gonna have to help each other learn to be a tripaw family.
Meanwhile, we have dropped our bed to nearly the floor, moved another mattress to the living room, are going to purchase a BUNCH of carpet runners to create non-slip “runways” through the house. We have concrete floors and are worried about him slipping. We’ve also ordered some special paw wax that will protect his remaining tootsies and hopefully make them a little more sticky. We have ordered him a harness – it should be here by Monday, but will wait until his incision has healed a bit before introducing it to him.
I’ve also started researching physical therapy ideas for getting his core stronger and to drop some of his weight. He has always been “fluffy”, but now we need to get him skinny and keep him that way.
But first we need to get him home.
Sounds like you are very well prepared for his eventual homecoming. We didn’t bring Max home for a few days, because neither my husband nor I could take off work (his surgery was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so I took a half day on Wednesday and brought him home then). It was hard leaving our boy at the hospital, but I felt much more comfortable leaving him there under 24/7 medical supervision. Keep in mind that your boy will be on a lot of meds when he comes home, and some of those meds can make him see pink elephants. Don’t be too discouraged if you notice he’s a little different. Each dog’s recovery is different, some fly through recovery, while others take a little longer. We didn’t see Max’s “normal” personality until about 4 weeks after surgery, so it can take some time. But right now, all that’s important is that your boy made it through surgery, and will be home with you soon!
hard as it is, you are right, better sfae than sorry at this point….
I am NOT an expert… but once he is getting around with some level of confidence, you might start some rubber bands… you run them under his body or behind a leg and apply gentle pulsating presssure… that lets him use tiny muscles movements… like isometrics. graduate to a low balanace disk and get him to target that with his back paws or front paw. Again, he uses little muscle shifts to improve his core strength. Once that is going well you can play with the inflation to make it harder. Then graduate to a BOSU….
Did you contact the folks at PAWS? When we were there there really wasn’t anyone on the south side of town….
Patricia
It’s good I think that he’ll stay another night. It sounds like you guys are really prepared. The first couple of weeks can be hard. Don’t be surprised if you don’t sleep much and feel discouraged and start to question what you’ve done – that’s very normal!
Don’t be surprised if he comes home doing really well and then crashes (mentally/emotionally – not literally crashing) a day or so later. The adrenaline rush of coming home can make them peppier at first then they are really ready to be. Again, we hear that all the time – it’s very normal.
Don’t be worried if he seems very depressed and not himself. Again – that’s very normal.
We’re here if you have questions during his recovery. (Best to post questions in the forum than on the blog so more people will see them.) Hopefully you’ll be one of the ones that breezes through it!
(We did the same – we put our mattress on the floor for the first 10 days or so!)
It’s going to be ok!
Jackie, Angel Abby’s mom
Magnum stayed in hospital for 4 nights. That’s what our surgeon recommended. While I wanted her home it was comforting to know she was under the 24 hour care of professionals.
It sounds like you are as prepared as you can be and you have been given some good advice in the responses above.
Hang in there.
Karen and Spirit Magnum