wrigley said:

Baby steps Baby steps if that's what it takes. I am so glad to hear that things are moving in the pawsitive direction. When we were going through our recovery the best advice was just to take things day by day and hour by hour if that was the case. Each day will bring a little more improvement and soon I am sure she will be showing you that being a tripawd is no big deal.

Hang in there. We'll continue sending good thoughts your way.

Thanks so much, Wrigley.  Today just seems so much better than yesterday.  I have more hope.  It really was hour by hour since she came home.  Maybe today will just be a good day, and I can revel in that?  🙂

Thanks for the encouragement, Sally and Sam.

It actually turned out to be a terrible night, last night.  (The morning hasn't been any better.)

I know everyone says the first two weeks are “pure hell” (and that's what I'm going through), but that's with dogs who are actually walking.  Mine isn't…still.

It's promising that she's making attempts to walk, but at least a third of the time, when she brings her foot forward, it lands with her toes curled under, and she doesn't even seem to care.  I've watched her walk four steps in a row where her toes were curled under.  That can't possibly be a positive thing.  (Keep in mind that we still support her weight, while every now and then giving her the chance to walk under her own power.  I've given-up the sling for just holding my arms around her waist.  The harness isn't really necessary, but is on, just in case.  She seems okay with supporting her weight on her front legs.)

In any event, she developed spontaneous incontinence yesterday afternoon.  Urine is constantly dribbling out of her at pretty much the rate it's made.  I can't imagine why this is happening.  I have a call into my veterinarian.  I dread the idea that I'll have to take her into the clinic, since she can't walk and she's urinating.  Logistically, I don't even know how I'd manage that.

She's still asleep all the time.  She has never gotten up on her own.  The closest she comes is sitting upright, when I tell her to (you know, tell her we're going outside, and to “wake up” and clap my hands, that sort of thing).  She's eating okay, and drinking well.  Her heartrate and respirations are good.  She hasn't defecated since Sunday (at the hospital, according to staff she had one bowel movement Sunday morning).  I did the match thing last night, and got a tiny amount out of her.  (Better some than none.)  The same thing this morning.  She's eating food, so she should be defecating.  She's not scarfing food down, or anything.  But she eats at least one steak per day, and about a cup of peanut butter.  She'll lick at canned dog food, and I've since used a cake piping bag to get more canned food into her.  (About one can yesterday, and one can this morning.)

I slept with her on her bed, last night, despite the urine.  (I have her sleeping on wee pads.)  She seemed basically fine.  She wakes up from time to time, stretches, then falls back asleep. 

This morning, I decided to try some depends diapers I had for a previous foster dog for whom I used them to support his swollen scrotum after neutering.  The diaper with the wee pad is at least keeping me from having to remake her bed every few minutes and/or having to do more laundry.  (Yesterday was all about the laundry.) 🙁  But I physically can't keep this up for very long.  Physically supporting her whenever I have to walk her anywhere is backbreaking.  And then having this constant urine watch, bedding replacement, laundry, etc., is demoralizing.

I can't imagine what help my vet. is going to offer.  Maybe medication that can help with the incontinence or a theory as to why it started. 

The thing that's keeping me going is she isn't her normal self.  She's still completely out of it.  She has lucid moments, but they're fleeting.  If she gets to the point where she's alert and more like herself, and still can't walk and is still incontinent, I'm afraid that might be decision time.  If I could just get her walking…  If I could just stop the urinating…

Sorry to be depressing.  I've gotta run, as I'm constantly on urine duty now. 

Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone.  Time will tell, I guess.  But this is not at all what I was expecting from surgery.  I thought I'd be making her life (and mine) better.  It couldn't be much worse than this.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!

She walked.

I let her go outside to nap out there ('cause she loves the sound of the water - we live at the beach - the sky, the birds, etc.)  I came inside to do more laundry and just generally try to clean a little, and when I went to go out again (just a few minutes later), I saw her trying to stand on her own.  She almost made it, too!  I flew off the deck, asking her if she wanted to get up.  She tried to get up again, and all I really did was a wee bit of support at the very end.  She basically stood on her own.

Wow.

Then, once she was standing, she hopped a bit, and made a few mistakes.  Then she "took off" for about five steps in a row, without any actual help from me (I just had my arms kind of "hooped" around her waist).  I was squealing!  "Good girl!!!!!!"  "Good girl!!!!!!!!"  She kept on a-hoppin', all the way towards the water.  (I think she wants to poop, but can't figure out how to do it.)

I'm here exclaiming all this because my husband is at work, but forgot his cell phone, so I have to email him, and the only other people who know about her current situation are her vet's.  (And I'm really not going to call them up to tell them she walked...since they don't really know us.)  (I've been waiting to tell my family and friends about Amber's condition until I have something positive, or at least final, to relay.  My sister passed away from breast cancer about a year ago, and my brother-in-law is battling a brain tumor right now.  ...Stupid cancer.  And I just didn't want to add another open-ended cancer diagnosis to the mix.  I figured if we could wait 'til Amber is walking, and doing well, then that would be better.)

I still have the incontinence issue, but wow...  Wow.  Wow-wee.  She walked.  On her own.  She really did it.  Day 5.  Best day ever.

I HAD to tell someone.  I guess you guys are the lucky ones. 😉

Thanks, again, everyone for the encouragement AND helpful suggestions and tips.

Everyday is a rollercoaster of emotion ranging from “I should euthanize this poor dog” to “She's getting it.  She's really getting it!”  And that full range of emotion occurs 10 times a day.

After almost another full day of incontinence, and her still needing a lot of support for everything, I thought a lot about euthanasia.  But the words of veterans steeled me with a modicum of resolve to at least give her a month before making any kind of permanent decision.  However, I was really unsure if I could continue like that.

Yesterday morning, she'd sort of “woken up”.  She was bright and seemed to have some strength in her leg.  Seeing that, when I took her outside first thing in the morning, I led her to one of her outdoor beds, and then put a water dish about 10' away.  I felt pretty confident that she'd go for it.  And she did!  She got up on her own; hopped over to her water dish; and stood there, drinking, without any support from me. 

By the time she finished drinking, though, she started to fade.  So I supported her at her waist, and then she just took off hopping.  She was headed towards her usual potty area of the yard, so I figured she was finally going to defecate.  (Until then I'd only been able to get small amounts of feces out of her using the “match stick” method.  She hadn't really defecated since I brought her home on Sunday(!), other than that.)  She slipped away from me, then stopped, and started to urinate before she realized she doesn't yet know how to stop, or balance herself in that position.  She fell backwards, of course.  I caught up to her and hoisted her up, for another attempt…both of us now covered in urine.  And off she went again, racing another 5-10 steps before stopping and trying to urinate again.  She failed again, falling backwards, which halted the stream.  I helped her up again, but she was done trying.

Still, I was thrilled with the effort and progress.  Day 6: walking unsupported for the first time; first attempt at solo urination.  (It's funny how we quickly determine what is truly important in life.  Anyone who knows me...clean freak that I am...would probably be surprised that Amber and I were there, each of us covered in a fair amount of urine, and it was about the happiest I'd been in a while.  So what if we have urine on us.  It washes right off.  But the thrill of her attempting to be autonomous...  ...Pure joy.)

Once back on one of her outdoor beds, I did the match stick thing again, and this time got a half-way decent amount of feces out of her…albeit while she was lying on her side.  Later on, she evacuated her bladder on that bed, though. 

After talking to my regular veterinarian about the incontinence, we decided to wait a bit to see if it continued.  Like so many things with this dog (she's very unique in many ways…I like to say, 'what's black for most dogs is white for her'), her incontinence went away as mysteriously as it appeared.  My theory is, because she wasn't comfortable with urinating while we were supporting her, yet she didn't know how to urinate on her own, and didn't want to urinate in the hosue, she was trying to hold it.  Somewhere in that process, she both began leaking a constant drip of urine at the same time she would have bouts of total bladder evacuation.  Long story short, her diaper was dry all afternoon yesterday and, last night, she urinated outdoors for the first time with my husband and I supporting her.  I felt so confident, I didn't put a diaper on her or even a wee pad under her last night.  Sure enough, she had a dry night.  First thing this morning we took her outside and she again urinated with our support.  So, it's just a matter of her learning how to support herself, I think. (phew)

The defecation hasn't really come along, yet.  But I'm sure it will, like the urination.  I did the match stick thing again this morning after her urination. 

As far as the knuckling-over is concerned, that's still an issue.  However, I noticed she rarely does it when she's walking on her own power.  It's only when we're supporting her. 

Walking on her own is so different from her attempts to walk while we support her, I suppose I should mention that for anyone else having difficulty with their new tripawd.  Her first attempts at walking were encouraging, but only when she actually walked without assistance did I see the difference.  With support, it's a really half-hearted effort.  When she's doing it on her own, her rump really comes up and she gives a good and proper hop.  Still, because of the occasional misstep, we have her wearing one of her boots at all times outdoors, now.

In any event, she's walking better and better each day.  Now that the incontinence seems to be gone, my day is a bit sunnier.

As for massage…yes, YES, and Y E S !  I have always massaged that dog, every day of her life.  (I've used massage on all my dogs and horses for years, if not for the therapeutic effects, just for the bonding.  My hands mean kindness and comfort, and nothing else.)  We're doing massage, plus stretching, full range of motion, etc.  I don't know if it's helping, but it sure can't be hurting. 

Yesterday morning was the first day where she seemed like her old self, and I have to say that I'd taken her off Tramadol the previous day.  So, yesterday, all she had was Metacam.  (That is totally in keeping with the orthopaedist's instructions, if not maybe a day early.)   That said, she seemed sluggish by the afternoon (either exhausted, in some pain, or both), so I re-administered the Tramadol.  This morning, she's almost like her old self.  She sits upright, with ears upright.  She wants to move about, if not yet quite sure how to go about it.

It's Day 7 post-op, and she still isn't walking completely on her own, but can for a short distance.

Anyway, that's the latest update on Amberdoodle.  She's alive and in reasonably good spirits (ate her first cookie yesterday!).  It's all moving along, if not quite as fast as most amputees.

Thanks, again, for all the encouragement.  And please, don't hesitate to comment if something I've written jogs a concern or suggestion.  You're all veterans, and I can't yet see around corners.  So don't be shy.