long day

Well, Wookie is home from her amputation surgery. She is in a ton of pain and extremely out of it, but I know she's gonna be ok because she is giving me the warface and has bitten me twice.



To say she had a stressful day would be quite the understatement. She seemed to be in quite a bit of discomfort this morning, possibly due to her little fence jumping episode yesterday. We went to see Dr. Law first thing this morning to discuss the post surgery options and he wanted to see how the hardware in her leg had fared the last few weeks. As we cut the bandages away, she tried to bite us both a few times. Once they were off, she went to work cleaning all the junk that had seeped out since the first surgery. I got my first look at the hardware - if I had that crap in my leg, jumping fences would be the farthest thing from my mind. After rewrapping the leg, we were off to Hillside to check her in for surgery.

Dr. Schilling met us and again walked me through the process. I gave her Wook's leash and said my goodbye's. Wook promplty dropped to the ground and refused to go with Dr. Schilling. After some encouragement, I walked her back to the dog run in the surgery area. I have been going to this vet for 8-9 years and this was my first 'behind the scenes' look. Quite an impressive operation. After some coaxing we got her in and I left.

We'll skip the details about my scattered few hours at work, and get back to the dog. I called at 3:45 to check on her and Dr. Schilling came to the phone. She said the surgery took quite a bit longer than normal due to Wook's strength in the shoulder and chest, it just took extra time to cut through everything. She told me everything had gone well and Wook was recovering. I could come get her at 5:15.

The great news was, she put up her head and wagged her tail when I walked in. After an attempt at picking her up, we decided to sling her and take her to the truck on the gurney. It was heartbreaking, even the smallest movements caused my baby to cry like I've never experienced in my life. She has always been tough as nails. I can't imagine her pain level given all the pain meds she's on. We got her out to the truck and took her home. My brother met me at the door to help carry her in. We tucked her in, and left to let her rest. When I came home, she was gone!!! She had decided she didn't like the bed we made her and moved across the house to sit by the back door. After some coaxing and a few bites, I got her back into her bed, where she is fast asleep at my feet right now. In a few hours I need to give her another dose of intravenous pain meds and hope it takes her through the night.

Tomorrow we go back for a check up and to take the catheter out of her leg. Im glad she's strong, cause it's killing me. On a side note, the lymph nodes were removed and sent to the lab for testing - our first step in determining further treatment. Dr. Schilling was absolutley amazing today, she has so much concern for Wook's health and comfort.

Hoping for a good nights sleep and we'll start again tomorrow.

Ciao