Day three post op has been up and down, but for the most part calm and stress free.
Meg slept through the night and woke up around 7:30 wanting to come up on the bed for a snuggle. Drugged her up with some tramadol and let her nest under the doona cover like she used to as a quad dog.
Things seemed fine, until I offered her breakfast. Not interested at all. I was 95% sure this was because I blended up some of her normal dog food with raw chicken, she has been eating raw chicken by itself for the last few days, but there was a risk that A) she was in too much pain and B) the day 3-5 crash beginning. I’m prepared for that crash but at the same time, I want to keep enjoying a happy Meg for a little longer. I insisted we get her a cheeseburger meat patty for lunch, when she has her rimadyl and needs to eat.
Fortunately it seemed like she was just sulking about dog food and went on enjoying the day. The sun was out and she took up some sun baking.
Sunbaking
We even took her to the (very empty) dog park where she sat on my lap, laid in the grass and even had a little roll in the grass – nothing too strenuous. The happiness on her face was amazing, I think the park on a sunny day is her favourite thing.
The morning was topped off with her eating her cheeseburger lunch and happily getting drugged.
The main highlight from the afternoon was taking her out for a pee break, going to pick her up to take her back to our second level apartment, but nope, she wanted to climb those steps herself! Two sets of at least 10 stairs! The first few were almost slips (I was ready to grab her), but after that she had it nailed! Safe to say she is only doing that once a day for now.
She did a fair bit of running between rooms this afternoon as well, to my horror. I enforced bed rest – she is going to be exhausted tomorrow (she already is).
Her shaking has picked up, and the signs of phantom limb pain episodes, and a hell of a lot more sulkiness and sadness has begun. Here comes the crash.
Hasn’t this been a journey already! Lucky for Meg, it has been a smooth one. Love and gratitude to everyone on tripawds who has been posting on my forum threads, and talking to me in the live chat when I was waiting for news! This blog probably won’t have any new info for you guys though. Seriously though, this site is a blessing.
Surgery day!
Surgery day was stressful and long, as you’d expect. We dropped off Meg at 8:00, and honestly I wasn’t expecting to see her again, I was that sure things would go wrong. I even made my partner Tim be the contact person because I was terrified of the bad news call. I told Tim to only call if there was bad news, and around 1:00, Tim called. My heart sank and I took a deep breath and answered. Tim sounded upset and serious, and that was almost confirmation for me. Nope. Surgery went smoothly and Meg was recovering well. Men – they don’t listen to you and make you stress for no reason! Relevant info – the vets also said they’d only call if there were complications that afternoon, sounds familiar.
Our only other stress for the afternoon was where Meg would be spending the night. The receptionists /vet nurses kept asking what time we’d be picking her up, but the doctors were adamant she’d be staying overnight. I wasn’t keen on her staying alone at the vets overnight, but also the idea of bringing her home didn’t thrill me.
Around 4:00 or 5:00 the vets called. Heart sank, again. I listened intently as Tim spoke to them, but it didn’t seem like any bad news. Opposite actually – Meg was awake, tail wagging, learning to walk and even ate some chicken. She was still on an IV to manage her pain and didn’t cope with them lowering the dosage, so it looked clear she’d need to stay overnight.
We went to see her around 7:15, she looked high as a kite, very sore but happy to see us. We spent about an hour with her as the vets shut up and eventually decided to take her to the 24hr vets for the night. Our vet said he’d send through her history to them. Email never showed up to the 24hr vets AND they said our vets were meant to send over her drugs, therefore we’d have to pay for them. Lucky this turned out to be false. Although it was a stressful 30 minutes at the 24hr vets waiting to check Meg in and get her back on the IV, while wondering why her history never arrived and how we got so misled about the costs of her stay there. Alls well that ends well.
What to heck just happened?!
Post Op Day 1
We collected Meg from the 24hr vets in the morning, and were thrilled to hear she had a good night, and was hopping around in the morning, and even did a lil pee! Dropped her off at the regular vets, our vet was concerned that she seemed a little dehydrated and very high from all the drugs, so she’d need to spend the day there. Understandable and predictable. We would get an update in the afternoon and see if she could come home that night. Around 2:30 we called and the vet said she was good to go that evening.
Home sweet home
We picked her up at 6:15, she seemed very happy and a lot less miserable than the previous times we saw her. She was thrilled to be home, not so thrilled with her cone of shame. She’d bump it into things and fall over. She ate dinner right away, took her drugs and settled down for the evening without too much fuss. We took her to bed around 11:00, and she settled down with only a few whimpers. At 1:30am she woke up crying and banging her cone into the bedroom door. Megquad would’ve held in a pee, or at least gone on a peepad. Not Megpod. Outside we went and she did what she needed to do, while still struggling with the cone. She took about 30 minutes to go back to sleep afterwards, lots of crying and shaking, poor lil girl. She woke up about 3 or 4 more times during the night, gently crying and shaking, luckily she’d fall back to sleep quickly, which resolved the pain issue.
Post Op Day 2
Today seems like a very laid back day! Meg has been asleep all day, aside from eating breakfast. Her pain seems under control and all is well. Hopefully the hospital drugs don’t wear off for another few days. The cone is off, given we are watching her like a hawk and it only seems to be upsetting her, that seems to have helped her a lot. Meanwhile, I am well and truly exhausted already – what do you mean I have uni work to catch up on?! Sleep please!
*Will update with any other day 2 developments as the day goes on!*
Afternoon updates:
The afternoon features a few phantom limb pain attacks, which was pretty startling for us! Poor girl must be in so much pain when it happens, nothing really prepares you for those yelps.
We also made a quick visit to the vets, the bandage over the wound was falling off and got replaced, the vet seemed very pleased at how Meg is progressing, and a little offended she is eating perfectly at home, but didn’t want food at the vets!
We also cut her tramadol from every 8-12 hours, to 6-10 hours, hopefully that keeps her ahead of the pain!
Keep kicking goals Meggymoo, we’re so proud of you!
I’ve been counting down the days ever since we booked Meg in for her amputation, and it is getting very close now. 2 more sleeps! Eeeeeekkkk!
On one hand having three weeks between finding out we need the surgery and the surgery date has been great – getting things ready around the house, making sure things are ok with uni/work before taking time off and of course spending lots of time spoiling Meg. On the other hand, it has been a very drawn out process of getting anxious, feeling better after doing research (mainly on tripawds), only to see Meglet being so happy and playful on four legs. I know she won’t mind three legged life once she recovers, but it is hard to be 100% sure of that when all the nerves are at a high! You all understand!
At least Meg has had a lovely last three weeks as a quaddog. Lots of big walks, trips to various parks, a visit to a dog cafe, and exploring lots of new places.
Run Meg, Run!Enjoying a pupmuffin & dogachino at Dog House Cafe, Collingwood
Meanwhile, we’ve gotten a lot of things around the house sorted, and gotten nearly everything ticked off the list:
Harness
Memory foam bed
Rugs, rugs & more rugs
The only thing missing is a baby gate, which hopefully won’t even be needed! Anything else? Raised food/water bowls perhaps?
We did have a few set backs during the three weeks, last week Meg woke up with a swollen eyelid, another trip to the vets! Yesterday she woke up with a sore jaw/snout, I think she got too rough with her sister, but that seems to have fixed itself!
So Wednesday is the big day. I’m terrified, but trying to be more dog about it and getting on with things, just as Meg is. Any advice for keeping sane on the big day would be appreciated, I’m sure I’ll be on the forums all day and even add my own topic!
Keep exploring Meg!
Good luck Meg, you’ll kick arse at this tripawd thing!
Meg, our 8 year old jackchi has had a lump in her back leg for around three months.
We took her to the vet when we discovered the lump, they did a needle aspiration and although the cells didn’t look normal, they didn’t look like “anything nasty”. This was a massive relief to my partner and myself. Meg went on some anti inflammatories and some antibiotics, as the vet seemed to think it was some sort of infection or injury. The lump went away, and we stopped worrying. Even though the lump came back, it was always after strenuous exercise or stress, so I (stupidly) put off taking her back to the vet. We got on with everything, Meg continued living a happy life, now with her new sister Dotti.
About two weeks ago Meg had a bad few days, she didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to get out of bed. She trailed behind on walks and stood by our feet at the dog park. She would hop around, keeping her left rear leg, the one with the lump, off the ground. This isn’t uncommon given she has a knee problem and the cold had made it worse all winter. I thought her heart condition had gotten worse, or old age had slapped her in the face hard, and her knee had gotten worse. In the end I think it was simply she went a kilometre too far on a walk and was very worn out. ANYWAY, the vet suggested we biopsied the lump, just to be sure, but he was “fairly certain” it wasn’t cancer, because it shrunk and grew with exercise.
Meg, high as a kite post biopsy
Five days or so later Meg went in for her biopsy, and I thought that would be the most terrifying experience of the leg lump mystery. The vet was confident it wasn’t cancer, therefore I was confident. We were both wrong. On Friday the 26th I got a call from the vets, which started with “unfortenately the news isn’t what we hoped for…”. My heart sank as the vet went on to say Meg had a Mast Cell Tumour, and our four options were radical surgery to get clean margins, less radical surgery with radiation, amputation, or letting the cancer eventually kill her and doing what we could for pain etc. My heart was broken into a million pieces, as I tried to figure out what to do, and how we could afford any of the treatment options. Ironically, moments before taking the phone call I saw a tripawd walking past, missing its left rear leg. Seeing how well the lil guy hopped along was probably the only thing that helped me that night.
After speaking with the vet in person, and finding out Meg’s tumour was low grade, we were fairly certain amputation was our best option. Although its unlikely to have spread, we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves this time, but we will deal with any news of it spreading when it comes.
We went home and I found this site. It has been amazing and reassuring. I’ve gone from being wrecked about the decision to semi-ok about it. I’m still terrified about recovery, the surgery, but I know we’re doing the right thing for Meg. Her surgery is booked in for the 21st of September, so for now we are letting Meg enjoy her last few weeks of having four legs.
Meanwhile I am trying to read and learn as much as possible about tripawds, and making a list of things we need, new harness, new bed, rugs and yoga mats, a fence to keep the dogs apart while Meg recovers.
Any tips or advice would be appreciated, I know none of us want to be in this situation, but it is very comforting to know that so many people have faced this before me and now have very happy puppers continuing their journeys.
