Thanks, Jerry. Cassie did not come home with a bandage, so no compression of any kind.  Even though her incision is very clean with no sign of puffiness, fluid or blood leakage, vet advised against putting the compression vest on her until stitches come out, so we'll just have to work with our hands and towel for now.

Fetchon3, I don't think her pain had anything to do with her bladder being full because the first episode occurred less than 24 hours after her going potty the last time, but I do think she has a bit of confidence issue, particularly when it comes to the backyard.  She didn't show similar hesitancy when she had to go down the same ramp to get to the garage floor when she went to the vet yesterday.

Similar smaller shrieking happened this morning and this evening but again, these are becoming less urgent and agonizing sounding.  Another 24 hours have gone by since she let herself go at the vet's office, so we may try taking her out to the front yard to keep her moving but in a different scenery that's not associated with a traumatic episode.

We did get Gabapentin prescription filled tonight and debated and debated whether to put her on the pills now or not.  Now that we have better understanding of the pattern of phantom pains (assuming that's what these episodes are) with her, we have decided to keep Gaba in our back pocket for now and continue observing her progress as is.  To us, it seemed backward to sedate her all day and delay her regaining mobility in order to suppress possibility of panic-driven episodes that may or may not happen tomorrow.  If these episodes persist without any sign of getting better or, worse yet, regress to really bad agonizing pain of the initial phase, then we can try Gabapentin.  For now, she'll stay on her 75 mg Rimadryl/100 mg Tram every 12 hour regimen.

jerry said
I've met dogs who were on it, and I never would have guessed they were taking gaba. They weren't sedated or out of it at all.  

That's really good to know.  When we picked up the prescription tonight at a drug store, the pharmacist told us that it's primarily to address acute pain and can cause drowsiness and sometimes dizziness.  But he also said that's in people and he's never prescribed for dogs so he didn't know for sure, but he assumed it would be similar 

Thank you for posting the vid, Jerry.  I'm looking forward to being able to do exercises like that with Cassie soon.

Days 3 and 4 post-op were particularly difficult, and seeing Cassie in so much agony made me seriously question our decision to had her amputated and not insisting on Gaba treatment from the very beginning.  Lucky for us, however, Cassie seems to have turned the corner (update can be found here) so Gaba for now will stay on the counter.

I still don't know if the pain and shrieking episodes she was experiencing can officially be called "Phantom Pain " or not, as the vets that we spoke to (even the one that agreed to prescribe Gabapentin) did not affirmatively say "Yes, that is definitely phantom pain ."  I think the reality is, it's really hard to tell even for the vets since dogs can't talk.

In summary, what seemed to have worked for Cassie was a combination of the following:

• Putting hands to give gentle pressure around the incision site when she had episodes, as well as when she was calm to stimulate senses.  Now carrying this on with Thundershirt when she goes out.
• Reducing Tramadol dosage down faster than initially suggested by the surgeon to let her regain the will to move.  100 mg every 12 hours appears to be the magic number for Cassie (75 lbs).
• Breakthrough came when we decided to avoid the backyard where she seemed to have extra reservation about stepping down to.  Doing well at different location where there was no trauma attached seemed to have helped.

I know every dog's case is different, but hopefully Cassie's experience so far provides some ideas/comfort to other pawrents who may see this happen in their best friends in the future.