Thank you both for the responses, support, and helpful information!

We dropped Max off this morning for his surgery. It was a tough morning already, but it got even harder when the Dr. called to let us know she heard a heart murmur in her pre-op exam of him. We had a harrowing few hours while they did an echocardiogram to confirm his heart was up to the general anesthesia required for surgery. We just got the all clear and they are moving forward with his surgery now. 

Jerry, you asked about our doctor that made the referral - it was our surgeon, Dr. Roman at Friendship Animal Hospital in Washington, DC. She and the team there have been great to work with. And yes! I have been devouring all of those resources you linked; they were especially helpful for us as we prepare to welcome Max home tomorrow and begin his recovery. 

Karen, thank you for sharing about your Maggie. Her story is giving me so much hope in this wild time. And thank you both for the understanding about traz. We flagged it for his team, and are waiting from them to hear more about his recovery medicine regimen. I'll share that here once we learn more. 

We are on pins and needles waiting for the call that his surgery is over, and counting the hours until we can pick our baby boy up tomorrow morning. Tonight we are going to tri-prep our basement for his arrival and try to keep ourselves sane as we wait to see him. 

Day 2 Update!

Thank you for the info about the gab possibly moving to 8 hours and the reminder about the ace only being anti-anxiety but not a pain reliever. And thank you very much for the kind words about being with us/being at home being the right medicine for him; it means a lot for us. We have had a pretty good day over here, all things considered.

• Food - He ate his normal breakfast over the course of several hours in the first part of the day. We gave him the Ace and Gab at 8 AM, and he was a VERY snoozy boy after that. His gab dosage is 300 mg- that with the Ace knocked him out for most of the day. This evening as he got closer to the end of the morning pill effects, he started rousing a bit. He got up and we offered him his normal dinner (with a little bit of Kong spray cheese on top for incentive) and he ate the entire bowl in one go! He also drank a decent amount of water. He didn't drink that much earlier in the day, so we added chicken broth and that helped a lot. As we move into bedtime, he has eaten the normal amount he usually eats in a day.
• Energy - As I mentioned he slept most of the day, except for a short moment when I was having a tough time and crying a bit. I was trying to hide it from him to keep a positive and optimistic attitude for him, but he saw I was upset and STOOD UP ON HIS OWN and hopped over to give me a kiss. I wasn't far from where he was laying down, but we were so happy he stood and hopped on his own. After a sufficient amount of gratitude and praise, we helped him back to his bed where he promptly went back to sleep.
• Wound care - We haven't had any more seepage/leaking since we removed the bandage this morning (yay!) and we did two rounds of cold compresses. We are about to start the third cold compress. The swelling has gone down a bit, but he is still pretty bruised. He is tolerating the cone better than expected, but is still pretty displeased about it. When we are monitoring him closely, we give him little breaks without it so he can relax better, but it stays on the majority of the time.
• Potty breaks - As he was eating and drinking more today, we were expecting him to need to use the bathroom a bit. Since he was so drowsy most of the day, he was also pretty uninterested in using the bathroom or going outside. Then that magical time hit when was more energetic and ate dinner, so we figured we could give it another shot outside. He hopped out pretty well (assisted by my partner holding him up via harness) and peed almost immediately. He started sniffing around and seemed to be enjoying outside so we let him stay out for a bit. He then hop-led by partner to his usual poop spot, across the yard, and pooped on his own! He of course needed some help from his Dad to hold him up by the harness but he figured it out all on his own. The vet said he might not poop until this weekend, so we are delighted he is a little ahead of schedule on this. And the poop was totally normal. We were all very proud and he gave us a whole bunch of tail wags to let us know he was proud too!

We are about to give him his evening pills, and we expect he will go back to snooze town after that. Hoping for another smooth, uneventful evening. I'll continue to update as we hit other big recovery milestones.

Amy, wow - thank you for sharing with me about your experience. I'm so glad your dog is 100% back to normal now, and thank you so much for the kind words about focusing on the happy extra time. I'm still working on that part, but I haven't cried yet today, so feeling like I'm heading in the right direction. 

Update on Max, Day 8

• Wound - His wound continues to heal nicely with no infection or seepage. The bruising was pretty severe at first and has almost completely come down. He did develop a bit of a seroma on his chest on Day 3. We informed the vet and monitored. Happy news that it is almost completely gone now. 
• Meds - With the encouragement of you all, we reconsider his timing on his meds and speak to his vet team about them. On Day 3 we were able to add in another proscribed pain medication for him - buprenorphine. We moved that and the gab to every 8 hours and adjusted the carp and the ace to every 12 hours. This worked well for the past few days. We are nearing the end of his buprenorphine, so we are now only using that as needed when we notice he really needs some extra pain coverage. 
• Activity/ Energy - This boy cant be stopped. He is so eager to get back outside and play tug with us during what we call his "rowdy hours" -- the times when the meds are wearing off/sunset and he is fully awake and ready to play. He has been going outside regularly, and using the bathroom on his own consistently. We are still waiting to go on an official "walk" right now and are just doing some leashed walks around the yard for now. 
• Sleep - This has been a persistent challenge for us. We are staying in the basement with him during his recovery, and he has struggled to sleep through the night. He occasionally wakes up crying. At first we were very worried about his pain when he would do that, but now we believe that we hit the right balance for pain meds, and it is just him waking up from nightmares or crying out for reassurance. Any tips on how to tell the difference and how to help him sleep through the night?

I'm also curious how close to monitor him at this stage in his recovery? At the very beginning I couldn't imagine stepping away from him for a second, but he is coming along so well, we are trying to reintroduce some of his routines/schedules, and it is starting to feel like some things are getting back to normal. Is it alright to let him spend some time alone in one room while I'm in another without eyes on him? Or should I wait until we get the official "all clear" from his surgeon? We are hopeful that will happen next Monday.