A trip to the emergency vet.

[Mugwump]

...is she feeling a bit better today ?....hope so 

[LizStreithorst]

Thanks to hard drugs she and I got a good night's sleep last night.  I spoke to the vet one more time yesterday.  I just didn't think that the skin was knitting together right.  Karen told me to bring her in when they opened at 7:30 and we'd look at it together before normal clients started  coming in.  She said that I was right.  Cha Cha will need a second surgery.  There is no infection, but some of the places where the skin was sewn together were necrotic and would have to be removed, the skin tacked down to the muscle and reattached.  Since the skin has already been pulled tight there will be some gaps that will have to heal on their own as the skin grows together.  Healing will be a long process and it won't be pretty.

I was told to take a pic of the wound Friday after work and email it to her so she could make sure that Cha Cha could get in Saturday if it was necessary.  That keeps me from having me to run back and forth to Hattiesburg and save me having to go back to the emergency clinic if Cha Cha needed to be seen.

It'll be another week to 10 days before they'll do surgery.  Most of the wound is healing well and she wants it to heal completely where it can before they go cutting on her.

She's feeling much better.  She peed for the first time since this happened this morning.  She's starting to walk around a bit.  She doesn't scream every time she moves.

[Ron Sower]

...progress...

[Mugwump]

...progress...

....

[wsantia1]

...progress...

....

+2

[Barb]

Glad she is recovering so well!  Makes your life a bit easier now.
Barb

[LizStreithorst]

Chachie was doing well enough Wed. that I felt comfortable leaving her caged at home while Bruno and I went to training.  She was great Thurs. until late evening when areas around the incision started looking angry.  I took a pic of it and emailed it to my vet who had seen her just 2 days before.  I said that I would drop Cha Cha off before work Friday morning.  Friday night Cha Cha was sleeping in bed next to me.  I felt her body temperature rise and then she had a seizure.  She's get normal and then it would happen again, and again, and again.  Thinking the worst, I thought septic shock but I wasn't about to take her back to the emergency vet because this should not have been happening.  I put the poor dog in her bed and locked her in the office because it was like 2 am. and I needed to get sleep.

Next morning my real vets saw her.  They called to say that her temp was normal and her blood work was perfect and that she was looking normal except for the incision area.  They did a second surgery.  Dr. Jennifer said that when she opened up the incision the subcutaneous tissue smelled bad but the muscle was perfect.  She scraped off all the bad stuff, cleaned it well, and sewed it back up.  They put a honey bandage over the wound and sent her home with a wrap around it.  I was given another pain med in addition to the two she was already on.  That plus 2 antibiotics makes 5 pills twice a day!!  Dr Jennifer said that she did leave some of the inflamed skin.  She said that the small area of inflamed skin might or might not recover.  My instructions were to bring her back Wed. or sooner if the incision like didn't look right.

I was told to remove the wrap and bandage today and I did.  The surgery was much more tidy this time.  I can see the area of questionable skin.  I'll watch it like a hawk and put the cream on it that Karen gave me the first time I took her in.  If that questionable area of skin doesn't die healing won't take all that long.  If not, Chachie will need a third surgery to cut the skin back to where it's healthy and I'll have to wrap it every day until good living skin found it's way to the other good living skin.  Healing will be a long process.

This should never have happened.  This shouldn't have been such an ordeal.  I asked Dr. Jennifer if he (the emergency vet) had tacked the skin to the muscle.  All she said is, "We generally do in cases like this.  The sutures  may have already dissolved."  In other words she saw no evidence of them.  I have a feeling that she didn't want to trash a another veterinarian, but I know what I feel about that emergency vet.

Here's a pic of how the injury looks now.  Compare it to the emergency vet's job.

[wallace]

That looks better. Maybe she went briefly septic, spiked a fever, and then her immune system got the upper hand by morning.

[Mugwump]

...the poor pup.....I hope this is the last of those ordeals for her, and she heals quickly...

[Mugwump]

[LizStreithorst]

Ron, I know it makes you feel bad when I say harsh things about Cha Cha, but despite the cone the bitch ripped out her skin sutures last night some time.  I heard and felt her chewing but I didn't think that she could get to them.  I was wrong.  Healing had already started and Dr. Jennifer must have tacked the skin to the muscle very close to the external suture line so nothing is gapped open.  I put what I had left of her old wrap back on her but I'll still have to take her back to the vet tomorrow.  They have two choices.  One to knock her out and put in metal sutures or knock her out and show me exactly how I should wrap the injury.  (She's such a pussy that I'm sure that she'll scream if they do the wrap with her awake)  I think they'll decide to have me wrap it and re-wrap it  twice a day so I can take a look at it as it heals and put on the derma-clens cream.  But it's a hard area to wrap so I'm not sure what they'll do.  Damn dog does nothing but foil me at every turn but I love her nonetheless.

[LizStreithorst]

Could she be learning?  I don't know.  She's not the teachable type.  May be.

I gave Cha Cha her 2nd 1/3rd of a can of dog food with all her pills tucked in.  She's good at taking meds in food.  Then I unwrapped her wrap, but DermaClens on it and wrapped her back up.  She has not messed with the wrap at all.  It's still right where I put it.  This is a first.  It would be nice if I could make this dog less like a spoiled brat and more like a dog.

She's the polar opposite of Bruno.  She's all about herself.  She really is a terrible dog.  She doesn't let me see her soul through her eyes like Bruno  But she's mine and I love her.  She's just a challenge because she's so un-doglike.

[LizStreithorst]

My little shit head is back at the vet getting sewn up again.  They'll be putting a larger cone on her.

[Mugwump]

My little shit head is back at the vet getting sewn up again.  They'll be putting a larger cone on her.

...spunky little pup...wow!

[LizStreithorst]

Shit head is back home.  When Dr. Karen examined her she wanted to see how Cha Cha could defeat the cone so we took the wrap off and she saw it with her own eyes.  She was nice.  She only charged me for the drugs and the new e-collar.  No charge for the time she took sewing her back together.

Cha Cha is pissed off.  She knows that she can't get to her injury.  She tried to force it over her head with her little front legs.  That didn't work either.  This dog is very smart and very resourceful and very hard headed.  But I am smarter, even more resourceful, and can be as bull headed as I have to be.