Day 8

Well, folks, here we are at day 8 post-op. Asia is doing really well except for the open hole in the side of her belly where the catheter used to be. Oh, and the weird pouch of fluid that has collected back near her pee pee (that's my technical term for it) that makes it look like some weirdly stretched out testicle.

In all seriousness, she is doing great. We've had many a sleepless night and we've had to fuss at her because she won't leave the bandage alone and every night at midnight I wake up and she's done something to that damned bandage. Like Saturday night. She chewed, nee, destroyed the bandage and it was hanging around her middle by a piece of medical tape. And then there was the whimpering. So we went to the emergency vet to make sure she didn't cause any permanent damage (there wasn't) and an hour and $83 later walked out with a newly bandaged dog and some pain pills for the inflammation. Did I mention that the inflammation was caused by her chewing off the bandage? Stinker.

Actually, on Saturday we went to the vet twice. As soon as she got home from her first appointment Michael took her outside for a walk and she had a BM causing her bandages to bunch up entirely around her little doggy hips. So....we went right back to have her re-bandaged. And Sunday went well, too except that the lovely folks at the emergency vet used some sort of super duper sticky tape that NASA probably uses to hold bits of the space shuttle together to keep her bandages on and forced me to cut it out of her fur. Now she is sporting a really bad haircut.

Then on Monday she developed a pocket of fluid around the catheter so we called our vet at home and, bless his heart, he had us bring her to his office on Labor Day for a check up. He took out the catheter and cleaned her up and sent us home with a happier dog. Wouldn't you be happy if someone removed a nasty looking catheter from your body? Unfortunately the hole left by the catheter was abscessed so we have to leave it open to drain. We've been managing the seepage (and the licking....you know, dogs really are grody little creatures) by making her wear Michael's t-shirts with a little D@isy Duke tie in the back. I'll post pictures as soon as I can find the cable.

And we went back on Tuesday for another scheduled check up. She's been doing really well....she's eating and she's able to go for a longer walk during the day. And, this is the best part, last night she slept all night without messing with her hole or her weird pocket of fluid. There was much rejoicing. Except for the fact that we were up at 3:30 because Michael had a plane to catch. That lucky bastard gets to go to Vegas for 3 days for a conference and I have to stay at home and hold down the fort. (Love you, honey!) We had a minor setback of retching this morning but luckily she's holding down her food and antibiotics and seems okay. Thankfully my MIL was kind enough to stay with her today while I went to class. What I need now is a vacation. Except that this particular medical emergency cost a few thousand dollars so the only vacations we'll be taking are trips to Lankytown where we can stay with my dad and eat PB&J on the trip out and back.

But she's worth every penny of it. And no doubt the vet can continue to make payments on his snazzy Lexus SUV for many months to come.