Today, Dizzy is still pretty woozy &
feeling very sorry for himself. I spent a restless night on the sofa with
his crate beside me as it’s a bit too big to fit next to our bed & he
needs the space to be able to get comfy with his buster collar on over night. I
was waking up every hour or so to check he was ok and every time I found him
fast asleep and snoring his little head off. He’s devoured a small breakfast of
scrambled egg, wolfed down his pills (four antibiotics & half a pain killer)
wrapped in ham & had another snooze.
So far, my biggest worries are his lack of
interest in taking a drink of water & the fact that he’s not been to
the toilet since before the op. We’ve carefully carried him outside a few times
and he has had a little hobble around with his poorly leg hanging limply behind
him (see video at end of post). I have no idea at this point if the lack of
toileting is normal, but we’re planning on giving him until tomorrow and we’ll
probably phone the vet for advice if he still hasn’t gone. We suspect he just
can’t figure out how to go about it on three legs, bless him.
At this stage its very strict crate rest
and absolutely minimal movement and as he’s still feeling the effects of the
anesthetic, we’re not having any trouble with that. We have been told that it’s
fine to have him on the sofa but only if one of us is sat with him and keeping
a hand on him at all times to stop him jumping off, so we’ve given him an hour
of cuddles before putting him back to bed.
I think I greatly underestimated just how
strict the recovery period is and how vital it is that we do everything
absolutely right. I (stupidly) hadn’t anticipated how fragile the leg would be
and spent so long worrying about the operation day that I forgot to worry about
recovery. I wasn’t there to collect Dizzy from the vets, so Matt had the chat
with the nurse about to what to and what to expect. Although all info has been
relayed to me and we have a letter of instruction, I still feel extremely
underprepared and clueless.
The slightest bump or knock to the leg can
be very serious & it is vital that there’s no moisture on the bandage. I hate fixing the Buster Collar to him every I'm leaving the room but if he licks the bandage (or worse), any resulting infection will be extremely serious as it will be the bone that's get infected and not just the wound. Apparently it’s to be expected that there may be a small amount of blood or
slight discharge from the wound although it should only be slight, but so far there’s
been none of that. I absolutely hate lifting him in and out of the crate as I’m
terrified of knocking his leg & the first time we set him down outside
(very carefully & front legs touch down first) he let out a little yelp,
which scared me witless but his leg hadn’t even touch the floor so we think it more
just fear of it hurting.
Today, I feel very overwhelmed by it all
and on edge every time he so much as sneezes. I think the next few weeks are
gong to be very, very long!
Here's a little video of one of Dizzy's trips outside today (I've taken the sound off as there was lots of background noise from the wind!):
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