Here we are less than 1 month after Morgan’s surgery, and I can’t believe how well she has recovered.
She is happy, playful, and can beat her little sister in a tug of war! I am sooo happy that we opted for the amputation! I felt pretty strongly against it at first. I didn’t want to put her through it, I thought the recovery would be awful, I thought she would be just miserable…I was WRONG! This clearly was the right choice for Morgan, and I am so greatful to the Tripawd’s community. Without the information, advice, and support I found here, I know that I would not have opted for the amputation.
So we went to the Vet this morning (11 days after surgery) to have the stitches taken out. Morgan was soooo happy to get in the car and go for a ride. She did fantastic at figuring how to balance, and prop herself against the back seat for the car ride. Hopped into the vet’s office like a little champ! However, once they checked us in and we tried to get Morgan into one of the exam rooms… Morgan changed her mind. She wanted noooo parts of going in there. We had to take her back out the front door, around the side of the building and into a side entrance into the back hallway. Whew, that trick worked this time!
The Doc said everything looks good, and they took all of the stitches out. She said the fluid draining the other night is nothing to worry about. Morgan actually leaked quite a bit of fluid today as well. Doc said there are 2 small spots along the incision that are still open a bit. Nothing to worry about, and actually kind of a good thing, because those will give the fluid a place to go.
As though the excitement of the trip to the vet wasn’t enough, Morgan came home and after relaxing for a short time, decided to charge out to the back yard and hang out for a while.
I can’t say enough, how much relief I feel to see Morgan so Happy. I had so many second thoughts, and actually felt some amount of guilt when I dropped Morgan of for the surgery. I worried that she wouldn’t bounce back, or that she would have trouble adapting, there are so many things to think about. I am confident now that we made the right choice for Morgan, and the Tripawds community here helped so much with making the decision!
So yesterday (Thursday) was day 9, and Morgan is doing really well. She ventured further into the back yard than she has before, and seemed rather proud of herself!
She is also getting much better at sitting, which seemed difficult for her at first.
All was going well last night, until about 9:30… her incision started leaking fluid. We had that happen the first 2 days after surgery, but not since then. I have no idea why it would have started draining all of the sudden, she was just laying down relaxing when it started. I don’t know if possibly too much activity earlier in the evening could have caused it??? I am slightly disturbed by this since she is scheduled to have her stitches taken out on Saturday morning. Everything seems to be ok this morning, the leaking has stopped. I put some antibiotic on it this morning, and she seems to be feeling fine. I just hope there is nothing wrong !!!!!
We are on day 7, and Morgan seems to be doing pretty well. I’m no Doctor, but I think her incision is looking pretty good. She seems to be a little less itchy, the relentless back leg scratching is getting better.
She is venturing a little bit further towards the back yard each time she goes out. Evo makes me very nervous, charging full throttle towards poor Morgan, but so far she has been kind enough to stop before running into her. I think Evo understands to some degree that Morgan isn’t quite feeling up to par, however she does forget herself sometimes, and the crazy puppy comes out.
Right now Morgan is attempting to chew on a bone for the first time since surgery, it’s a little tricky with only 1 paw to hold it with.
Appointment is on Saturday morning to get the stitches out, hopefully all goes well !!
So here we are 6 days after Morgan’s surgery. We are still completely amazed at how well Morgan is doing. She has recovered from this surgery better than she did after her knee surgery. She seems so happy, her little Rottie Stump wiggles like crazy! We had her outside on Saturday morning, and she hopped over to my car and stood there looking at the car and then looking back at me… “C’mon Mom, let’s hit the park!”
She has already started hopping over to the basket in the corner, and grabbing her favorite toy to carry around with her.
I think she overdid it a bit on Saturday, because she was a very tired little girl on Sunday. I know they need to get a lot of rest during recovery, but we don’t want to discourage her from doing stuff either. So on Saturday, she was pulling her usual old tricks… I wanna be inside, I wanna be outside, can you please let me back in? She was up and down, and in and out a LOT on Saturday. I think it took it’s toll, because she was a bit less active on Sunday. I am guessing that her remaining front leg will be getting very tired and sore for a while.
I can’t express how relieved we feel to see her like this. Going into this, I was not convinced that this was the right thing to do. Now we know that it was!
So Morgan’s surgery was on September 14, and we brought her home on Sept 16. I was very nervous about picking her up. All of the reading I had done said that it is very important to be positive about this. We need to be happy to see them, be positive and encouraging… never let them see you cry. Well, I had blown all of that when I took her to drop her off on the day of surgery, I lost it in the waiting room and again, cried like a baby.
So I gave myself a pep talk on the way over to get her. I had looked at lots of pictures on the internet, to prepare myself for what she was going to look like. Turns out all of that worry was for nothing. When I saw her little face come into the room I truly was happy and positive. It was only 2 days after surgery and she was already hopping around pretty well, she was smiling (ok, panting… but it looks like a smile) There were no tears, it went so much easier than I thought.
She was just so happy to come home, and lay in her own bed! I was very impressed that the crazy puppy seemed to sense that something was wrong, and somehow knew enough to take it easy with her. They were both very happy to see each other.
Morgan has completly amazed us! She is hoping around on 3 legs like it’s a piece of cake. There are a few things that are a bit of a challenge for her, but she is UNBELIEVEABLE! She gets up and greets us when we come in the door, rear end wiggling like always. She hops out to do her business (in the driveway, instead of the yard now… oh well) I can only hope and pray that things continue to go this smoothly!
There are so many unknowns, and every dog is so different, you just never know. We are very relieved to see her acting so much like her old self. We are so glad that we made this choice for her!
We adopted Morgan 7 years ago. We were searching for a pup to keep our Lab mix Emmitt company. We had recently lost his former cohort Cleo, and he was lonely. So while browsing through the thousands of shelter dogs on petfinder.com, I came across Morgan. We brought her home and she and Emmitt were the buddies! We lost Emmitt on Dec 15, 2009. Apparently, once you are a 2 dog house, you will ALWAYS be a 2 dog house. Just as Emmitt missed his playmate, Morgan was very sad and midding her Emmitt. So in April of this year we adopted another little rescue mutt, named Evo. Evo is about 9 months old now, and her and Morgan are best friends!
So now for the morerecent part of Morgans story. On September 3, I took Morgan to the vet because she had been limping. I had her to the the vet for this same limp over a month before that, and we figured she had pulled something. She had ACL surgery early this year, and we thought that she may have been compensating for that leg a little, and ended up pulling something in her front paw. So when I took her in still limping after over a month of Rimadyl, and restricted activity, we decided that we shoud get some X-rays. So they took Morgan to the back to do the X-Rays, and I waited, and waited, and waited… She has had 2 ACL surgeries, so I know how long X-Rays take, and this was too long. Finally the Doc came back into the room (without Morgan) and gave me the horrible news. I was in shock! I was able to hold it together and ask a few semi-intellignt questions for a few minutes. But once they brought Morgan in, I fell apart, and cried like a baby. I tried to get some more information from the vet, but wasn’t very focused. So I took Morgan home, and started doing some reading. There really is a lot of information out there on Canine Osteosarcoma these days. That is when I found Tripawds…. thank God! I read a lot on the Tripawds site, as well as many other sites. With an unbelieveable amount of information and support from the others at Tripawds, we made the decision to Amputate. Morgan had her surgery on Sept 14, 2010.
