Hello!

What a rollercoaster of a few days for me. Chaco seemed to be in a good amount of pain over the elbow, and there were blood stains everywhere he laid, but he wouldn’t get on his side to relieve the pressure at all. We decided to up the trazadone so that he’d be relaxed enough that we could manually roll him on his side, and that worked & we were able to get him off of it for most of the day yesterday. But after being on that much trazadone for almost two days, he was out of it this morning. Could barely hold his head up, wouldn’t eat. Had me pretty worried until the afternoon when it wore off. It’s honestly hard to tell how much of it was the drugs, his general mood, or how much he’s milking it for all it’s worth. He acted like he could barely make it outside late morning, but when I asked him if he wanted to go for a car ride to the vet, he met me at the door 🙃 He also did great going up & down a ramp into the car! 

The vet thought Chaco looked really good. Incision healed very nicely & the stitches are gone. He didn’t think the elbow was infected yet & recommended the pad/brace you guys recommended as well—that will be here in a few days! He wants us to start weaning him off of the gabapentin & trazadone—which I’m happy to start! He didn’t give us any real guidelines on getting him off the gabapentin—is there any real strategy other than lowering the number of pills we give him each time?

Thanks for all your support through all of this!

Gerica

Thanks for the advice on weaning! We also talked to the tech in the neighborhood & she said she wouldn’t be in any hurry to get him off either. We’re currently trying to space the dosage farther out—originally every 12 hours instead of 8, but that seemed like too much so aiming for 10. He starts breathing heavier/panting just past the 8 hour mark so we’re really just playing it by ear. Other than the panting he’s showing no pain signals —no whining about the elbow any more either. But he’s also snoozing pretty hard while the gabapentin is in his system & really only awake/aware when it’s wearing off.

We’ve noticed his other front leg is starting to swell in the same spot the tumor was in the other leg. We know this could just be from the added weight he’s carrying on that leg, but it still scares us 🙈 Our tech neighbor recommended taking photos of it now & again in a week & comparing to see if it’s bigger so that’s the plan for now.  His eating has also slowed down—not eating breakfast til late afternoon & sometimes eating his dinner, sometimes not.

I keep reminding myself we’ve done the best we could with the information & resources we had. Still just taking it day by day.

Hello,

We’ve he quite a few setbacks since my last post.

Chaco has been gone free for over a week now, but Thursday night he started licking that elbow while we were asleep & licked it completely raw—as in he broke the skin in new areas as well as the callous to the point his tongue was also raw. We put him back in the cone Friday & aired it out all day & in the evening wrapped it in gauze for a bit while we tried out the neoprene wrap that had just arrived. After about an hour we noticed he was oozing through the gauze so we removed it & let it air out overnight. Nobody slept 😖 

Called vet first thing yesterday & got him in & they shaved it & cleaned it & sent us home with antibiotics. Gave clear directions to give with food because it can cause an upset stomach—which it did. He vomited several times last night & had diarrhea this morning. Refused his peanut butter covered pain meds We eventually got him to take them, but he has been pretty lethargic all day. He’s fallen a few times while transitioning to standing so we got the sling back out. He ate a little rice with pumpkin but nothing else. Has been drinking water okay. We have not tried the antibiotics again today—going to give his stomach time to recover & make a judgment call tomorrow on whether to try again or call emergency vet (where he had his amputation) & ask for a different one. 

He has at least stayed on the bed most today vs the floor, but the infection looks pretty rough to me—I have a light stomach when it comes to these things. Really questioning how much he’s suffering & how much more we put him through.

Gerica

Thanks! I’ve read through their story but haven’t thought to message them!

He seems in better spirits today. The elbow didn’t look quite as bad this morning so we tried wrapping it & using the sleeve, but he just got agitated with it so we removed it & it’s still oozing quite a bit. We just gave him a trazadone so hopefully he’ll rest & we can try to get him on his side again. 

As far as I know they did not do a culture on it. We have not attempted antibiotics yet as he just ate his first real meal since then about an hour ago, and he almost immediately had diarrhea again. Planning on calling first thing in the morning & seeing if they want to just change it or have us come in again.