Molly had her surgery yesterday, Dr Amazing and her staff were so great and kept us updated every step of the way.  I was actually doing better than I expected all day, until I saw a photo of her.... I completely broke down. Took me a while to take it all in and remember WHY we put her through this.  After work, hubby and I went and spent a couple of hours with her & Dr Amazing (who slept at the clinic all night to look after Molly). Molly snored almost the whole time, but she was awake for a bit and wagged her tail when we came in, which made me feel so much better.  The incision is super clean and looks as good as one can hope, and I know she's already been up and around on it to go out for a pee, etc. As of last night, she was yelping when she moved (Dr warned me before our visit) but she upped her pain meds a bit, so I didn't witness any of that (thank god, that would send me over for sure).  Molly comes home sometime today, as soon as Dr gets her weaned off the IV pain meds and back onto oral meds.

https://instagr.....JAHFPcL/ 

we're about 68 hours post-surgery now, and I'm pretty amazed at just how well Molly is doing so far.  We brought her home Saturday am, and she was very tired & still pretty heavily medicated, so thankfully she just slept a lot.  She did stumble/fall a few times over the weekend as she figured out how to deal with doorway thresholds, a new pee stance and how to get up onto things, but in no time she had figured out how to get up on the bed, and off!  The last two nights she has had a screaming/yelping episode that lasted about 30 seconds each time - heartbreaking to hear her make that noise!  The first time it happened (3:30am) we found her laying on her incision side, so I don't know if she stumbled while trying to re-position herself on the bed or what.  Once we got her turned onto her good side calmed down, she was fine.  Last night I was awake still (mama has major sleep deprivation from this weekend) and she was lying quietly against my legs when it started.  I'm not sure if she was sleeping or awake, but she was laying on her good side and just started thrashing and screaming/yelping.  Again, got her calmed down and she settled in for the rest of the night.  She sleeps fine throughout the rest of the day, this only happens at night, and she's on gabapentin (has been since diagnosis 4+ most ago), but we're a little stumped.  If it's trauma dreams, she sure didn't show that when we went to the vet this am for a quick check - bum wagging, happy dog, running all over and going right for the toy bin like she does every time.  Molly is incapapble of holding a grudge , she still loves everyone at the hospital and it was a huge chore to get her to LEAVE the vet and come home.  Her wounds are looking good, she pooped this am, and her recovery had gone 1000x better than I anticipated.  Yes, she gets very tired going out for a pee, etc, but who among us humans would be up and around and doing even a tenth of what our tripawds do within hours of amputation??

Her discharge paperwork has a not about Activity Restrictions: "at her discretion"... well it is MOLLY we are talking about here.  Yesterday afternoon I left her sleeping soundly on the bed while I took our other dog for a 30 min walk.  I came home, carefully opened the bedroom door, looked around the room, the bed and the bathroom and cannot find Molly. WTH???  Then I see that she is up on the window bench!! We had built stairs for her a couple of months ago so she could still get up and down to their sun-bathing spot, and I foolishly thought I had them blocked off enough for my newly amputated bulldog.  Clearly I was defusing myself.  She had climbed up the 3 steps and gotten all the way down to the other end and climbed onto the pile of squishy pillows and build herself a little bulldog nest (this dog has built more pillow forts in her life than any kid I've ever met).  When I discovered her, she just gave me the big puppy-dog eyes and wagged her bum at me like she was all proud of herself.  I'm all at once impressed, dumfounded and trying not to think of the myriad of ways she could have gotten hurt - like falling 3 feet onto the fence that's blocking it off, or onto the floor.  Needless to say, the stairs are now *super* blocked off and her daredevil butt is in a crate if I leave the house for even a few minutes. I'll relax a bit if we can just keep her settled at least until she gets her staples out!! Of course this is the same furniture-loving dog who had climbed into one of the exam room chairs at the vet on Saturday morning when we were on our way to pick her up.... 16 hours after surgery 

If you want to see updates, I've got lots of photos and videos posted on my instagram. https://www.ins.....m/jdcairo/

She's sleeping soundly now and I'm going to join her for a good nap, as I am tired and headache-y and feeling very sleep deprived.  Thanks again everyone, for all your support.  I really can't believe that she's been a tripawd for less than 3 days.  She's already happier and proving to us that taking the leg was the right decision. 

I'm always a little surprised when vets give post-amputation discharge instructions like that. It's a good thing you know Molly better than they do 🙂

Ha - well both the vet *and* I underestimated our little troublemaker!  She's been taking it easy when we're watching her and then the minute our back is turned, off she goes and she's on the window bench or has gotten off the bed we didn't know she could get off of yet.  She's always been a precocious little money  I see that has not changed one bit!! 

Thanks for the info about rehab therapies.  If the episodes continue again more than a day or two then we'll look into that for sure.

On a side-note, has anyone been watching the Bionic Vet or Supervet series on Netflix (Canada)?  They are both quite fascinating series', well worth watching!