Good Morning,

Ludo is doing soooo well, everyone! Since we picked him up on Tuesday he's had no trouble eating or peeing. He has been hopping around pretty successfully and has been figuring out how best to sit down and stand up. When he lays down on our bed he kind of plops his face down first. Rather than telling him to "put your butt down" we might need to start telling him to "put your face down!" Our last big post-surgery milestone was for him to take his first poop. Being that he has been eating pretty normally, we had been hoping this would come soon. After a little shart accident in bed last night, we were thinking today was the day! First thing this morning we took him out and he started hopping all around the yard looking for the perfect spot, only to get tired and just lay down. Shortly thereafter when I was in the kitchen making breakfast, Ludo let us know he needed to go out and he took his first poop! Just after his poop he was back inside begging for the eggs I had to abandon to take him out! 

We are both so proud of him and how well he is doing in just this short time. His wound is looking good and he is acting more and more like his normal, silly self! It's so nice to see him being able to get comfortable again and not cry out in pain all throughout the day/night. All the way up to dropping him off for his amputation, Tessa and I were so scared we were making the wrong choice for him. Even just these couple days post-surgery it's clear we made the RIGHT choice! He may look a little bit different now and walk a little funny, but he is still the same good boy he was!

Tony, I just watched Sadies hiking video and it looks like she is doing wonderful! I’m so glad she is recovering so well!

Ludo is still doing really well too! He’s doing all his things like eating, drinking, going potty and everything pretty much like normal. He even successfully snuck down our back two stairs without issue when we were distracted!

He does still seem to be in some pain though. It’s been about 9 days since his surgery and he will still wake up to cry in the middle of the night. Not nearly as frequently or severe as pre-surgery pain crying, but typically one or two times. Additionally, he sometimes lays down and his incision area is shaking. The incision itself looks just fine. It’s not hot and does not have any weird discharge or coloring. Is it normal for him to still be pain 9 days after surgery? 

Phantom limb pain is what we were worried about. It seems to be more of a shaking, but I have seen his muscles around the amputation area twitch on occasion. He is already on Gabapentin and reading through some of the phantom limb pain relief treatments (wrap, massage, warm compress) on here it looks like the recommendation is to wait until the wound is completely healed. I would imagine we would also want to wait until the wound is healed to start acupuncture? He is getting his stitches out this upcoming Tuesday, but between now and then do you know of any other relief measures we could take? He yelped today when he was readjusting on the bed and once when he was laying on his incision side. He had been laying on the incision side with no issues prior to today too. He also seems to be a lot more lethargic today than he had been the previous post-surgery days.