Month: November 2009

Just a quick blog to post my tribute to Mercy, and of course all of the furkids lost prior and that I’m sure I’ll have the misfortune to part with in the future.  The picture isn’t that great.  This is an hour after I got it. The quote is “A heartbeat at my feet”.  Some people may not be big on tattoos… but this was a part of my healing process.  I got it a week after I lost Mercy, and as it heals, so am I still trying to heal.

Without details, because I can’t bring myself to discuss it since it just happened an hour ago, Mercy died in ICU. I just wanted to let everyone know. She just kept getting worse, and crashed. They weren’t able to get her back. When I can bring myself to do it, I have an XS ruff wear harness, new, for anyone who can use it. She never got to wear it. I’ll post it when I can.

We had a bad night last night and this morning.  We kept having the same thing we had at noon yesterday, where we’d try to get up and start screaming and throw ourselves backwards and writhe with no real reason.  I took her to work this morning and put a new fentanyl patch back on her and give her an injection to keep her comfortable in the meantime.  Discontinuing the tramadol for now, it wasn’t working quite well enough.  After that, we had one more little episode, but not quite as bad, and because we decided to try and race across the house to meet someone.  Hopefully it will keep her more comfortable for now.  I brought home another pain injection just in case we have another rough night waiting for her patch to kick in, since it takes 12-24 hours.  In the meantime, she managed to take a nice deep nap for a little while with the assistance of one of those grand little comforts.

When I first got her, she stole a stuffed wolf I was given, and so… I gave it back to her today.  Both of them are showing their age, but the little comforts are important.  Hopefully tomorrow is a better day since I have to work again on Monday.  Thankfully, I have the benefit of being able to take her to work with me.

Mercy’s first day certainly went better than expected, and last night was good, too.  The air mattress deflated on us, so I just gave Mercy my pillows and we camped on the floor.  We slept pretty well, waking up at 3am for one of our pills.  This morning she was acting pretty restless, so I took her for another “carry” around the block, and took her to work with me to show everyone how well she was doing and pick up her Tramadol for later today when her fentanyl patch comes off.  I noticed that she is acting pretty painful on her left hind leg today.  I’m hoping it’s just a combination of compensation and balance working new areas, and/or that her left leg is the one that gets held on my hip when she wants to be carried.  As much as I can, I’ve been making her lay down, not get carried and not walk to try and give that leg time to recover.  Maybe I’ll heat pack it later tonight when it cools off outside.  Around noon, we curled up on the couch together, her as close as she could get to me on my chest.  She ended up cradled between my left arm and chest on her back sleeping.  After the nap, I started worrying about how I could help her get up from this precarious position, when out of nowhere I see her incision site trying to move feverishly, and she starts trying to roll backwards and cry and really freak out and scare me.  I’m not sure if the pain of trying to move it caused the reaction, or if this was our first experience with phantom limb pain.  We are getting ready to pull off her fentanyl patch, perhaps it’s losing efficacy and that’s why she’s acting a little more depressed today.  I’m crossing my fingers that the transition to pills will go smoothly, but I’m a bit scared.  All I know is that I don’t like it when her “wiggle butt” is broken, and I hope tomorrow brings a better day.  Can’t say that I wasn’t warned that we would have our ups and downs the first couple weeks.  I was just hoping her 2nd day would be as fantastic as her first.  I would really like for her back leg not to be hurting her right now since that was one of my biggest fears about the amputation, is that something would happen to another leg.

On the bright side, one of my other concerns, how she would tackle the obstacle of having a bowel movement, was addressed at 3am this morning.  We had to run outside quickly and she did the best “this? this is old news” job ever.  Looks like we’re getting the pottying down pretty quickly.  Mercy is definitely proving to be a somewhat independent and strong girl throughout this.  She certainly doesn’t want help, and is braver than I am through it all.

Happy Friday, everyone.

Yesterday and last night were probably some of the worst moments of my life; talk about anxiety.  Mercy had her surgery yesterday, although it almost got rescheduled… I’m not sure I could have gone through this nightmare twice.  They still got her done for me, though I’m not sure that’s better.  They wouldn’t let me back in surgery at all to see her, so I clocked out of work and paced the floor for hours waiting until I could see her again.  I was so nervous, every part of my body hurts, and I haven’t slept in 48 hours.  They said the surgery had no complications, but it still shocks you the first time you see the dog you’ve had for nearly 10 years all of a sudden only have 3 legs.  Even as a vet tech, I wasn’t prepared for the emotions this whole experience flooded me with.  I was a wreck yesterday and last night.  Especially last night when her and I were the only ones awake and she was so scared.  She was on good pain meds, but I think being very disoriented,missing a leg, and probably even still a little sore, made for a rough night.  She was up all night breathing rapidly and crying.  At least, crying if I wasn’t petting her.  Being with her wasn’t enough, touching her wasn’t enough, had to be petting her.  So despite no sleep the night before surgery, I was up all night reassuring her.  We set the alarm for 3am to give her some more pain meds, and she ate a little bit of wet food.  Very few things get in the way of her appetite, at least!  We said good morning to the rest of the furkids around 4:30am.  Mercy was a little bit grumpy.  And I think one of them is the reason for my air mattress deflating.  Mercy and I set up last night on the floor on an air mattress, with her in her favourite bed, swaddled in about 3 blankets, and a brand new heating blanket since her temp was a little low after surgery.  With water, syringes, warm damp washcloths, a thermometer, etc. to make sure we were prepared for the night.  There may also have been a popsicle at some point, but shhhh, that was under the table.  Come 6am, Mercy was feeling much better.  The crying had gone from the hyperventilating whine it had been to more of a “can I move?” noise.  I think she has to potty.  That was the first time her and I got brave enough to try picking her up, and I set her down, and she stood on her 3 legs for awhile.  Not brave enough to walk yet, and we haven’t pottied yet because we can’t walk.  I pulled her IV catheter this morning, so she has one less obstacle in the way of learning her new 3 legged shuffle.  We’ve been getting up every so often this morning to do some “standing” and to go for a carry around the house.  We might go for a short carry around the block or down the street a little later to get some fresh air.  Her incision is still “oozing” a little, which is normal.  Once it stops, we’ll be putting her shirt back on.  The poor girl is missing all of her hair except her back legs, her butt, and her head.  Everything else has been shaved off from surgery and ultrasound.  If we can’t manage to get to potty before this afternoon, I might try and help her out a little.  In the meantime, she is finally sleeping comfortably (thank goodness), and I might just use the time to catch up on the sleep I haven’t been getting.

All I can say is… it’s a good thing my coworkers love me, because I was a holy wreck yesterday at work.  I owe a lot to all three of the vets that worked yesterday to get Mercy’s surgery squeezed in, besides a rash of emergencies that nearly postponed it.  I was so worried about my little girl yesterday, I don’t think my gratitude showed.  I know it didn’t, unfortunately.  Mercy and I will have to thank them somehow.

Thank you all for your well wishes!