November 2, 2010

Ups and Downs and an Omen

I can't believe we are only on Day 4, post surgery. It seems a lot longer. Probably because of the lack of sleep. I think, on the whole, we are having more ups than downs, but still, the downs are not fun. 
On the "up" side:
  • She gets around pretty well (except for the stairs - see "downs" below!);
  • Mostly doing OK with sitting and laying down (as evidenced by yesterday's cute pic of her sitting);
  • Her appetite (which has never been great her whole young life) is surprisingly good - at least most of the time (probably due to the fact that she is being hand-fed canned dog food, cottage cheese, provolone, peanut butter, dog-jerky treats, salmon patties and Flying Dutchmen, instead of her usual same-stuff-different-day dry kibble);
  • Her incision looks like it's healing up OK;
  • We had our first post-op poop (although it was a fiasco...) and she seems fine with the whole 3-legged squatting thing.
 On the "down" side:
  • She has screamed or cried a couple of times (which is so horrid and pitiful), like yesterday when I wrote about trying to help her off the bed. Because of that, we put our mattress on the floor last night, so that we could be next to her bed. (Crazy, huh? Unfortunately, it also had pluses and minuses: the pluses being she got in and out of bed with us very easily; the minus being she got out of bed at 1 and wandered off. More on that below.)
  • Getting up and down the stairs is literally a pain. Last night when we were trying to go up to bed, she started crying after the first step. We can't pick her up, but I used my little sling I made and we took it very slowly, with lots of resting in the landing of the stairwell, and eventually made it up. Can't wait til she can cruise up and down more easily!
  • The last 24 hours or so she's been very aloof, e.g. instead of cuddling on the sofa with us last night, she went and flopped down on the tile floor in the other room, which is kind of crazy because it had to be very cold. But then, maybe it felt good on her boo-boo. (She sleeps on it a lot, which I find surprising. I mean, if you had your arm cut off, do you think you'd be laying on that side right after surgery? Yowzaa. I think not.) Then there was the whole thing last night with her getting out of bed at 1 and sleeping at the farthest possible corner of the hall. Couldn't coax her back to bed (we ran out of provolone!) so had to just leave her there. Checked on her at 4:30 and still no go. Finally I think about 6 I was able to get her to come back in bed with us, and she laid there shivering like crazy, poor silly little thing. I'm assuming the aloofness is from the pain and/or the meds. There's a discussion board on the Tripawds site, so I posted a question to see if others had the same issue. 
To end on a good note, I forgot to mention earlier the good omen we had the night of her surgery. When we moved her from the vet's office to the ER for the night and were waiting to talk to the vet there, this woman came in with a little tripawd dog. It was very wiggly and happy and ran up to us (ignoring other folks who were there) to say hi. We took it as a good sign that Abby will soon be wiggly and happy. 

The little Tripawd was wearing a T-shirt that said: "Missing Leg 1-800-CALLME!" We are thinking of having one made for Abby that says: "It tasted like chicken." I know the other day Patricia suggested a "Bad to the Bone" shirt. Any other suggestions for custom made T-shirts?

Tomorrow: the drain comes out!

6 comments:

  1. Maybe you should go with some sort of pirate theme for a t-shirt. Pirates always seem to have mislaid their body parts. "Aaarrgggh. I've lost me blooming leg!" You could do a skull/cross bones missing a bone. Ok, stupid.

    Hope she gets over the aloofness. Maybe she thinks she better steer clear of the people who have put her in this state?! Kidding. It's probably a mix of pain and the meds.

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  2. The oncologist did say that "pirate" is the most popular Halloween costume for a tripawd. Maybe next year I'll make her a pirate w/ the skull/cross bones missing a bone, like you suggest. (She better be here to see next Halloween - in fact, she better see a bunch of them!)

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  3. We've got a leftover eye patch!

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  4. "Now where did I bury that bone?"

    "Nothing up my sleeve."

    How about, "Will shed limbs for food." Shoot, cottage cheese, provolone, peanut butter, jerky treats, salmon patties and Flying Dutchmen. For that I might cut off MY arm.

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  5. Those are all good. I might have to get her a whole wardrobe of shirts. And, yes Jim, she is definitely getting way more meat than you are these days.

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  6. I went on the Tripawd site. Very nice to have support from people who have been through the same. I especially liked reading the note from the 17 year old tripaw.

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