To be honest Christmas is generally my favorite holiday of the year. As Christians D and I both think the birth of Jesus is something to be celebrated and view Christmas as more than just a day for presents.
This year we were both besieged with worry for Chance and enough stress with dealing with family and puppies and a sick puppy dog that all we wanted was it to be over.
Monday found us changing Chance's dressing and what we found horrified us both... it smelled foul and things did not look good. Add in that Chance had refused food - something he never does and was taking pedialyte by syringe we knew we had to talk to the vet. We did and we came up with a game plan - Chance was able to pee for us and would continue to take the pedialyte for us and his temp was not up so we would take him in in the morning and he would have another wash out of his wounds... Irrigation and debridement is the technical term for what was to happen.
Monday I came home from work (with yet another migraine as sleep was minimal on Monday during the day) and Chance had had a rough night - he had growled at D when he tried to put the E collar back on - eventually E was able to do that and he just was feeling like poop. He had a meltdown when we went to put him in the box to go to the vet. His dressing was again foul and I was just praying that he did not have a puncture in his bowels (perforated bowel) as I just didn't like the way he was acting.
Off to the vet we went and D requested that my mom call our old family doc and see if he would call something in to help me sleep as I hadn't been sleeping for about 3 nights (he did - bless him!) Once we got to the vet we took the old dressing off and were just horrified at his poor wounds... they had gotten worse and he had a few puss pockets that he hadn't had before. He definitely needed to have the I & D done and IV antibiotics as well as some IV fluids.
We left him in their hands and told him we'd be back that afternoon to see him. When we came back my puppy dog looked so pitiful - you could tell he was a bit better, but still felt like something the cat had hacked up and wouldn't even lick my hand. We talked with the vet - who told us he was still open and had wet to dry dressings in place. She was planning on keeping him comfortable throughout the night and hydrated and just keeping him quiet and seeing what things looked like in the morning. She felt he had not perfed his bowel and that the IV antibiotics would get things under control.
I received a phone call from her at about 9 pm telling me that he had eaten and drank some as well as gone to the bathroom - all encouraging things.
We went today at about 4 pm to visit... and were given the option of leaving him there and having her change the dressing (it was her day off and she had been on call since the 22nd - each night she had had to come in and she had taken care of Chance on the 22nd - 26th. We felt she deserved to have a break and assisted with the dressing change to make sure we were okay with doing it and we were. He'll have wet to dry dressings done twice a day until his belly wound is clean enough to be closed. Possibly on Friday he'll have that closed.
He's had a lot of extra skin taken away - so he's got a mini tummy tuck and his side is bald as he was shaved... he's got an e-collar on and is still quite pitiful, but we have him home and he's happy to be here.
So prayers are asked to be continued as we'd like to keep him on the road to recovery. Yesterday was the first night that I actually got sleep and it helped to voice my concerns to D... D had had the same fear that he had some internal damage from the bites and that we'd have to put him to sleep and finally saying the words made them lose some of their power. I tend to internalize my fears and work through them... this time I couldn't work through them because I still feel responsible for his injuries and while I would do whatever is in his best interest to have to do so because of my mistake would be awful... guilt is a powerful thing and thank goodness Chance doesn't hold a grudge.
So that's what's been going on here...
Oh yes and on a positive note - we did the at home test for male fertility and it was positive which equates to D's sperm count is greater than 20 million... so for the moment he's dodged the bullet on having a formal s/a done.
1 comment:
How is Chance?
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