Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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My dog Lucy, 10 year old yellow lab was diagnosed with osteosarcoma on 8/11/17, had 2 different vets see her and both agreed with xrays and assessment it was definitely cancer to her rear left leg. Lucy is a very active 10 years old, she had surgery for bilateral luxating patellas at 1 year old and has mild arthritis to both rear knees but it did not slow her down much. She had her rear left leg amputated on 08/30/17, was sent home the same day on Tramadol, Gabapentin and Deramaxx. Her pain was incredibly severe. It was a hard couple of days, within 48 hours her incision and stomach was hard, thickened, very hot and deep red and purple. I called the vet on 08/31/17, day after surgery and explained her pain was out of control. Vet offered for me to bring her in for a shot of hydromorphone in muscle for pain, said it would last 6 hours, however, we live in a rural area, the drive was 2 hours round trip and Lucy hates car rides and has alot of anxiety so I decided to keep her home and started ice packs to her incision 3 times a day, the ice packs seemed to be a slight relief as her incision was hot. Day 2 on 09/01/17, I noticed her belly was hot and the redness was spreading to under her chest and between her front legs, I called the vet again and sent pictures, it was a Friday at 4:30pm, they said it did not look normal at all and to bring her in Sat morning as she needed IV fluids and hospitalization. She was also drinking a ton of water and looked swollen all over, at 7 pm Friday night i drove her to an ER in Austin, 1 hour away, they did labs, she was hospitalized for a severe staph infection to her incision. She stayed in ER fri, sat, sun and on night as mon was a holiday, they did IV antibitoics, IV Fentanyl drip for pain, hydrotherapy, warm compresses, she then developed 2 abscesses near incision the vet had to lance, I picked her up Tues morning and copious amounts of foul smelling drainage was coming out of her abscesses. I though for sure I would lose her. I felt awful putting my beautiful dog, the most gentle animal I have ever had, through so much. I notified her surgeon that within 48 hours of being home, she was hospitalized with a life threatening infection, he said to bring her to him immediately.....Lucy had alot of necrotizing tissue, skin and muscle, the vet had to cut away the skin and left a large open wound, size of a baseball. Lucy then spent 14 days at the vet getting IV antibiotics, pain meds, they did a sugar-iodine scrub, light laser therapy and hydrotherapy three times a day for 2 weeks. I picked Lucy up on 09/15/17 to spend the weekend with her family, sleep in her bed and get the love she deserves from us. I have to take her back 09/17/17 for her to have a 4th surgery to close her wound and place a drain tube. This all, ofcourse, have slowed her healing, she is not strong like she was, having a hard time getting up. I have pictures of her wound but haven't figured out how to post them
Lucy and family, welcome. I am SO sorry for the ordeal you have endured. Oh my gosh that is definitely worst case scenario and we are so, so sorry. I'm going to stay pawsitive though and say that the good news is she is on the road to healing. She sounds like such a strong girl, she has so much on her side to overcome this. And now that you have joined us you have a place to lean on for comfort as she heals.
We've had Tripawds endure MRSA infections before, but not a staph infection that got as bad as this. Wow.
Here is a post that explains adding images to the Forums. Let me know if you need help OK?
Have you seen our Tripawds Nutrition blog ? We have lots of posts about stimulating appetite and getting your doggie stronger so be sure to hop on over there oK?
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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Ohhhh myyyy gosh!! I am so sorry you and Lucy are going through this HORRID ordeal!!! Unflippinbelievable!! Tha k goodness yiu are such an OUTSTANDING ADVOCATE FOR YOUR GIRL!!!
I know having her home for the week end has done you voth a world of good!
She IS a stong girl and she WILL get past this!! She's made it this far and has no intention of quitting now! A d goodness knows you are strong too!!
It's crazy what you two have been through. And I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you will soon see you did this FOR Lucy and not TO her! 🙂
I hope you'll ve able to bring her home real soon after this next surgery.
Please update us as soon as you can. YOU ARE. NOT ALONE!!! We are all on. TEAM LUCY right now and sending all the pawsitive energy in the world to you!!! Come in Lucy! Let's get this drainage cleared up and get back to a "normal" recovery!!!
Sending you lots of love and hugs from us all!!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
PS. The mobility issues will start improving once Lucy gets all this behind her. She's been through a lot, she's been drugged a lot and she's been in a kennel away from home waaaay to much!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Hi Dean,
I am truly sorry to hear about what you're going through. *hugs* I have a 10 yo lab who is at the tail end of the type of infection you're dealing with. He's not the Tripawd in the family, but had a large fatty lump removed. The lump itself was about the size of a pork roast - 2kg - and located where his back leg comes up to meet his body (front, not on his hip), a place where a lot of movement happens. They stitched him up but the placement of the wound and the amount of fluid his body was producing in reaction to the surgery made it impossible for the stitching to stay in; the stitches came out about 2 days after he came home, so he had to have a very large, open wound for quite some time. At the time the stitching came out, his insides were not fully healed, so he was actively bleeding/oozing for a while. It took about 4 months for it to completely close, so I imagine Lucy's will close faster since it's smaller.
Be prepared for a long haul and possibly some unexpected issues to arise in conjunction with the wound itself. Here's some information for you based on things I experienced during my guy's recovery:
1) Be ready for a mess; you will need to change bandages probably more frequently than your vet tells you - nonstick absorbent pads and coban worked well but I had to get a full-body net to keep it all on him. I had a "bandaging station" set up with everything laid out; I needed to be efficient with it because I was changing the bandages so frequently (~ 4 - 6 times a day). If you can get some prescription shampoo from the vet that's for skin infections, I found this to be super helpful in cleaning up the ooze that crusted over his skin. NOT the wound itself, but the oozy stuff will crust up all over and it's hard to get off of them. I just spot cleaned him as needed to keep the area around the wound clean and you'll likely need to do this as well for the area around the drainage tube.
2) It's possible some of the stitching may come out and you will have to deal with that until it heals. I say this just in case it happens. They told me the stitching would stay, but it did not and that was a shock I'd hate for you to go through. If this happens, don't hesitate to press the vet for as much information as possible. If that happens and you're dealing with an open wound, it's a lot of work. It is not, however, a bad thing. As long as you can keep the wound clean, it's actually helpful for it to be open and heal from the inside out. Counterintuitive, but there you have it. My guy's wound was way bigger than a baseball, so Lucy will get through just fine! It will just take time.
3) See if you can get some NeoPredef powder. It's great for keeping oozing areas dry and is an antibiotic. You can pretty much put as much as you want/need on for as long as you need to. It works wonders, especially with skin infections/surface level stuff.
4) SUPER IMPORTANT: Often times dogs will get a secondary skin infection as their bodies are trying to deal with healing a large wound like that. It's not uncommon, but I was not informed of this. The body can only handle so much, really. Keep an eye on Lucy's skin and fur. If she starts losing fur and/or you see alopecia with red scaly, peeling, oozing etc. skin, get her in asap to be treated for that. She'll need a bunch of stuff to help her with that as well. If her fur is thick, or if she has a double coat, check her over carefully. It may take a while to present itself, also. My guy lost huge amounts of hair, and even now that the infection is gone, he has large spots of brown skin that's healed but looks nasty, is shedding the dead, infected skin and a lot of hair is coming out (while the big alopecia spots are growing back in). His skin infection was very deep and antibiotic resistant, so again, press the vet. I'm not saying your vet isn't / wouldn't do an amazing job helping Lucy, but this can get real complicated real fast, and can be overwhelming for you.
He went through nearly the same process you describe...the hospitalizations, treatments, medical boarding, etc. It's almost uncanny reading your post, to be honest. But please know this. A healthy ('cept for the bum knee) 10 yo lab at my house, although not fully furry (haha), is acting like a puppy again. It is TOUGH to see a hearty dog out of commission like that for so long, but she will get better in time.
My best to you and Lucy!
This was so very incredibly kind of you to take the time to share this. INVALUABLE information!!! And I do mean INVALUABLE!!
So very sorry you had to go through all this and had to have so much "first hand learning" trial and error. You have certainly turned a rough experience into one that will help so many shoukd they ever be faced with this challenge.
Thank you again so much.....And how are you doing?? Good to hear from you! 🙂
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
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