October 2015 – Opal Dog, the Tripawd

1 Week Post Op

Today marks one full week post amputation and Opaldog is doing great! She’s maneuvering stairs like a pro and is able to hop on and off our couch with ease. She even jumped up onto our bed the other night, despite doing our best to keep her from being too active.

Her incision is looking great too! Per everyone’s advice I purchased a donut to go along with her cone of shame and it seems to do the trick nicely! I’ll be happy for her to get her staples out in a few days though. If she’s feeling this good with them in I can only imagine how great she feel once they are out. She still has some bruising, but thats quickly dissipating. Swelling has gone down completely too, and her hair is starting to grow back!

I can’t wait to see what this next week has in store for her recovery!

Day 3 Post Op

Opaldog is doing so good! Her bruising is gradually fading and her little bottom is slowly getting back to a normal size due to the decreased swelling. She slept through most of the night last night and is doing great as far as pain management goes, she’s able to go the full 12 hours before needing the pain medicine.

We counted how many staples she has, just out of curiosity- 33. Poor thing..

I had to leave the house today for the first time since she came home and although I was gone only a little after an hour, she tried eating her ecollar, not sure how she managed to do that, but this dog is so mischievous that I’ve stopped asking how she accomplishes things. Hopefully she knocks that off when I have to return to work on Monday. The last thing I need is for her to break her ecollar and mess with her incision. Anyone have any tips on how to prevent that?

She has also started to show some interest in toys again, but only after our other dog started to chew on her favorite one. She then bogarted it for the rest of the morning by using it as a pillow 🙂

2nd Day Post Op

Opal got to come home today! Opal is a superstar at recovery already! She’s walking around, albeit a bit unsteadily, is slowly getting her appetite back and is super snuggly. Oh, and gassy! SO very gassy!

She has some serious bruising and is pretty swollen. Her incision site looks pretty good too, but there is some oozing that we’re keeping an eye on. Overall, she is doing great and we couldn’t be happier having her back home and on the road to recovery!

Here is a picture of her we took tonight. Her shaved bottom makes me more sad than her missing leg!

Surgery Day

Today our dog Opal had her surgery to remove her right hind leg. About a year ago we found out our one-year-old Boxer had some knee issues which we were initially told could be fixed with a total knee replacement. After consulting with a vet college and opting to do an MRI, we found her knee trouble was much more complicated than our vet thought. It turns out not only did she have structural problems with the knee, but her tibia and fibula had grown with a slight spiral. We were told that to fix her leg would take multiple painful surgeries that may not guarantee a fix or alleviate her pain. Unsure of what to do and not yet ready to make a decision about surgery, we decided to focus on maintenance of her pain.

A year later, after being on daily pain medication we couldn’t keep our head in the sand anymore about the level of pain she was in. The pain medications no longer seemed to help, and how do you keep a two-year-old Boxer calm? You don’t. We decided it was time to schedule her surgery.

Today was surgery day, easily the worst day of our lives. We’ve been told the surgery is the worst of it, and that before we know it she’ll be running around causing all kinds of trouble again. Her surgery went well, but we haven’t been able to see her yet, but thankfully the vet hospital we take her to is phenomenal and tolerates our constant phone calls for updates. I can’t wait to see my wigglebutt tomorrow.