And the fight goes on.

Sweet Charlie is such a trooper. The surgeon was great with us today. He said that Charlie's tests are all great. His levels are all normal, no fever, and the amputation looks great. Unfortunately, 2-5% of surgery patients can get the abscess. He explained it as Charlie's body is fighting the infection by the wound eating itself creating the blood run. With the antibiotics and packing, Charlie's body will start to regenerate new cells and the blood will be less and less and the wound will be pinker and pinker with new tissue growth. This could take a while. Not a few days but maybe a couple of weeks. We have to go every couple of days to change the bandages unless he bleeds through them again like he did last night, then we go back immediately to change them. 

Today the surgeon cleaned out the abscess and no active bleeding when he did that. He packed it with seaweed bc seaweed is absorbent, natural and help regenerate new cell growth. On top of that, he packed it with medical packing, put two big bandages over it and wrapped Charlie back in a diaper type thing like before. 

The surgeon said that with this method, they are trying to by us more days instead of coming every day for a bandage change. He also took Charlie off Tramadol and upped the Tremeel. 

Charlie came home, ate, pee-pee, and pooped. Now he's resting again and hopefully on the mend. 

With this visit, I feel like the surgeon really listened and sat down with us to tell us exactly what to expect and the process. The MSRA culture will take at least 4-7 more days to come back, but he feels that Charlie doesn't have that. Finger crossed!!

Today my sweet Charlie had a bandage change. The bandage actually lasted the 48 hours this time!! Whoop! Today after the surgeon unwrapped Charlie, the abscess is all healed. Wonderful news! The MSRA came back negative. The hole where the abscess burst is still there and oozing a little, not the blood gush it was, but it's showing healing and fresh pink skin. The surgeon bandaged Charlie again and set an appt for Tuesday. YAY! 

A fun story....I actually left his side today (for the first time) and left the house to go to my niece's basketball game. My sweet Charlie just might be milking me...after I left, my husband sent me a photo where Charlie got up (which he hasn't done on his own in two weeks without me coaxing him or carrying him!) and walked to the front double glass doors and barked at everyone who walked by! So old Charlie!!! Since I've been home, he's laying back down next to me and giving me sad eyes. I'll let him blog on that with photos next week on the blog! Stinker. 

Fingers crossed for a good three days!!!