Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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He cries on palpation and he cries when he ambulates (bathroom only at this point) and then it takes an hour or so to calm down and lots of pain meds. And to be honest he cries even if he hasn’t ambulated and is just laying on his bed and he is due for pain meds
Thanks for your response. We don’t want him to suffer and he is suffering. But we also don’t want to call it because it seems cancer is not our issue and we don’t actually know the issue.
This is so hard. I will see if we can get a laser treatment done today.
One thing that stood out,when you wrote about him whining..
....is just laying on his bed and he is due for pain meds
Do you mind going over his pain regiment again now that you've added the Amanditine and the miscle relaxer? The dose amount a d the frequency and his weight?
pain management may still be a piece of this perplexing puzzle
Sorry to bombard you with more questions.
Gonna paraphrase and hooe Michelle doesn't mind me sharing this. Michelle told me they did xrays and lungs were clear and rubs were cleared by the ER. However, the ER people inferred that that basically since she didn't do chemo it'can sort of br expected that the cancer returned. That's what she felt like she "heard" from them. Keep in mind this "issue" began approximately one month post amp. Just wanted to reassure her that doing or not doing chemo has nothing to do with this situation.
It's a rare possibility that this disease may be lurking somewhere undetected and had already plotted it's brutal course, I assured her however, whether she did chemo or not, it had nothing to do with what has been going on.
And refresh my mem again. During all this has a Rehab Specialist evaluated Yogi??
Thank you for your patience in continuing to share what's going on day by day. Your love and commitment and Yogi's spunk are heartwarming ♥️
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!
I have the same questions Sally does.
Unfortunately because ER vets don't have the whole picture and must do their best in a limited amount of time (and in a frantic environment), they sometimes give a worst case scenario when new Tripawd parents go in for some type of pain issue. However it doesn't always mean that the worst is happening. Most times when people go back to their regular vet who does have the whole picture, they can get on the recovery track from the issue. So please don't panic.
This could be the time to get on board with a pain specialist if your vet doesn't have a plan beyond laser therapy. That's a nice therapy for long-term rehab but efficacy evidence is not where it needs to be when it comes to treating acute pain. It probably won't do much in the short-term. Where are you located? You can PM me your location if you don't want to share it here and I'm happy to point you to an IVAPM specialist. Your vet might need to refer you.
I really hope he is doing better today. Keep us updated OK? And give him some extra belly rubs and smooches from all of us. We are surrounding you with Tripawd Power!
Good point about vet emerg environment. I know all vets are super stretched right now too.
he has not been assessed by rehab yet - I have left two messages with someone in my city and hoping to hear back but honestly his pain is such that it’s really hard to get him anywhere. I sent you a message Jerry about my city.
He is 45kg
Since vet emerg
1800 methocarbimil (I’m sorry I don’t actually know the dose but we give 6 ml)
2000 gabapentin 400 mg + 50 mg cbd
2200 morphine 20 mg
2400 amantadine (3 capsules I’m sorry I don’t know the dose)
then we made a big mistake and forgot to set an alarm to 0200 he woke up at 0300 in a lot of pain.
0300 gabapentin 800 mg + 6 ml of methocarbimil
0600 morphine 30 mg
0800 metacam (45 kg dosing) and 50 mg cbd
1000 gabapentin 800 mg
1030 6 ml methocarbimol
and we are off to see our vet for laser treatment.
We carried him outside on his bed and lifted him up so he would pee. Still no poop (2 days)
We are home from our vet. They did a laser treatment which he tolerated well. They believe what he is experiencing is nerve pain. The surgeon is in on Tuesday and if we can make it to Tuesday they will do an exploratory surgery.
We forced him up to pee and poop this morning. I have never been so grateful for poop in all my life.
I think we have a plan. We are going to put our heads down, keep giving him pain meds and hope we can hang on until Tuesday.
Thanks for all your kind words and support! I hope we have this!
YES!!! YES!! YES!! You do indeed have a plan and FINALLY someone (besides here) is mentioning nerve pain!!! While it may not be the case it just makes sense as other causes continue to get eliminated,.
No worries about some delayed pooping. I imagine all the meds may be slowing down the 
. And btw, good job of sometoday!
I can only imagine how hard these next few days will be waiting for the Surgeon 's appt. Is this appt with an Ortho Surgeon or is it the Vet who performed the amputation??
Wish I could remember the names of the couple of dogs (I can only remember one or two.Jerry may be able to search).who had to go back in for the nerve Fox surgery. It seems to me it's not a full blown surgery where the incision is reopened..more like a smaller, less dramatic surgery. I'm sure Dtr Pam and Jerry can elaborate..
Okay, all paws crossed for some really good juju coming your way!!!I know you hate to keep drugging Yogi, but of that's what it takes to get to Tuesday, then that's still a "good" plan.
(((((((((((((((((((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!
Thanks for sharing the meds regimen. It looks spot on for a good pain management plan, and you guys are amazing nurses to him. I’m SO HAPPY he pooped too! Pain meds will cause constipation so if he’s eating OK you can add pumpkin pulp and fiber to his meals to keep things moving. And water too, hydration helps too.
We hope today and Monday are smooth and healing for all of you. Try to get some rest, that medication schedule looks pretty exhausting.
Lots and lots of Tripawd love coming your way!
And yep, vets are super stressed right now too. Things are a mess in the industry and I know without a doubt your vet team thanks you for being so understanding.
Thank you for your kind words.
The last 6 days have been hell but the count down is on - in about 9 hours we he will be getting surgery.
Same vet, but we hope and trust she will do a good job! He’s had two laser treatments as well in the last 3 days and that seems to have significantly helped which I feel confirms we have an incision issue!
I’ll keep you guys posted. Thanks for all the good vibes! We feel them
Thanks again for the update.
Your sweet Yogi jas been in our thoughts constantly. Hoping, hoping, hoping today brings yu some answers and some solutions👏👏👏👏👏
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!
Thanks for letting us know. We are keeping our paws crossed for some answers and a much happier pupperz! Keep us posted
We are on our way home from the vets! He had a massive abscess which is why he’s been progressively getting worse as it grows. It’s likely why emerg vet thought it was a scapula as it likely filled in the scapula space and became hard like a scapula.
It was deep enough that he didn’t display any signs of infection like redness, heat etc. He also must not have had a temperature at the emerg vet.
what a journey this has been and I hope no one else ever experiences it!
Thanks so much for all your support. I honestly believe without your positivity we might not have been able to see it through.
YOU are the ones who saw this through! You never gave up looking for reasons this horrible "backslide" was happening!
Absolutely mind boggling this has happened and how it took ao many different turns and twists trying to find the issue. Goodness knows on this end, we were throwing out every possibility we could think of, no matter how off the wall!
I hope you can catch a break mow and breathe a little easier👏
Yet another "unusual experience " to add to our tool box of "the unexpected" that can happen in surgery. Thus a few more questions! for our learning process. So what did the Vet say now as far as recovery time, what to expect as far as pain diminishing, mobility improving, etc.?
Is he on a particular antibiotic now? Jot sure if this is the type of infection abscess that needed a culture or not??
Hoping sweet boy can start feeling better fairly quickly now. Hoping he, and you, can all fina get a good night sleep!!!
Certainly sorry all this happened, but soooo glad this ordeal is over now, finally!! You stayed the course, and no matter how hard it was to go through this, you never gave up.
Love to 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!
WOOOOOAAAAAAH! I swear we are always learning something new from members. This is a first for us here, I can't recall a similar situation in all our years of being online. What an incredible finding, and such a relief too! Poor poor buddy! It's amazing that he did not show any signs of such a painful condition. But then again, animals are way tougher than we are, aren't they?
I'm so so so glad your vet team figured this out. And you stayed so strong and hopeful through it all!!! Any idea what might have caused that abscess? And I'm guessing there's probably tons of antibiotics now to help it go away?
Give your sweet boy extra cuddles from all of us. We are so relieved for you! 
You guys ask such good questions
It's so funny looking back on thought process'. From the beginning we suspected: muscle strain, fracture, spinal mets, rib mets, nerve pain. Ironically we never thought of infection (as I didn't notice any overt symptoms).
I cannot describe the relief of knowing with certainty what the issue is.
As far as what caused the abscess I don't know if we will ever know. He had a lot of swelling and fluid in the beginning that I asked about. They assured me it was normal, but I am wondering if he could have benefited from a drain from the beginning due to his size? That scapula space would be bigger for him than other breeds. He started demonstrating pain quite awhile ago. It probably started small, and then continued to increase in size. The last 6 days his symptoms progressed rapidly likely due to the severity and size it had become at that point. I suppose we will never really know the cause, I am just so thankful 1. he is still here and 2. he is not suffering anymore.
Recovery: we didn't really ask specific questions about his recovery to be honest I probably should have. I think we basically came to the joint understanding we would follow his cues for healing. He has a drain in for 3-4 days depending on how its draining (which at this point is a lot). We are trying to do warm compresses and massage on the area to help with the drainage as well.
Pain meds: they advised to keep him on the same meds he is on with the goal to slowly wean him off. Yesterday we didn't tweak anything and then today we dropped his morphine down to 20 mg instead of 30 mg. Tramadol down to 200 mg instead of 250 mg. The muscle relaxer we will just finish up what we have, gabapentin I think we will start to decrease from 800mg down. We have also decided to reduce his CBD
Antibiotics: The did send a sample to the lab for the gram and sensitivity. He is currently on 2 antibiotics for 2 weeks 1) Clavaseptin 2) enrofloxacin. I can't believe how expensive antibiotics for the big boys are!
So far he is doing really well. He tolerated post op much better than original surgery. Eating, drinking, wagging his tail and there is a spark back to his eye. And drum roll..... He got up on his OWN today to pee! AND he got up off his bed to walk around the car basically indicating to us he wanted to go for a car ride! This is after 6 days of us magic carpeting him around and me and my partner lifting his front and back end to the pee pee tree to pee while he was squealing the whole time.
I could cry while I'm reflecting on his progress. It breaks my heart thinking about the amount of pain he was in! But we can only move forward.
Again I cannot thank you guys enough for your support. I hope no one ever has to experience this, buuuut if someone does I hope our story helps them determine the cause sooner. That's what this is all about right?
Must confess, I was scrolling quickly at first because I couldn't wait to see how Yogi is doing today. And I am over the moon Happy to know his recovery is happening so quicklu!!! Huge relief!!! Actually a few Happy tears going on!
Another bit of insight should this "scenario " show up again when none of the "usual guesses" don't pan out.
As far as what caused the abscess I don't know if we will ever know. He had a lot of swelling and fluid in the beginning that I asked about. They assured me it was normal, but I am wondering if he could have benefited from a drain from the beginning due to his size? That scapula space would be bigger for him than other breeds
He had a lot of swelling and fluid in the beginning that I asked about. They assured me it was normal, but I am wondering if he could have benefited from a drain from the beginning due to his size
Yes, this has been a learning experience for all of us. While we were "observers" from afar, it had to be soooo hard eyewitnessing his downward spiral and hearing his pain first hand. And then to try soooo many possibilities with no results and to basically be told on one ocassion (or implied), euthanasia needed to be considered..Ugh!!!
That was then anf this is NOW!!! As Yogi has already shown uoj today, NOW is all that matters! I love that in the now, he is ready for carrides without the magic carpet!
It sounds like your Vet is spot on with the drain, checking out the sample, getting those drugs reduced, etc.
And we thank Yogi Bear for being such a trailblazer in putting g pieces of this puzzle together.
I hope our story helps them determine the cause sooner
Would love to post another picture (or many) of Yogi to celebrate this great day!!! Jist email me.
Happy hugs to 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!
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