Surgery Day!

Murph's leg amputation was yesterday, and my plan was to post an update to this blog last night. Unfortunately, he had a much harder time last night than I was hoping for.  We picked him up around 4:30, and they warned us at the time that he was still very out of it from the anesthetic and in quite a bit of pain despite all of the meds they gave him.  I won't lie, I started bawling like a baby in the middle of the clinic when they handed him over and he cried out from the pain.  We got him home and tucked into a soft bed next to my husband, and I spent the rest of the evening trying not to fall apart as he cried out every time he moved.  By early evening he was eating and we were able to give him more pain meds, but overall he had a pretty tough time until around 2 AM when the anesthesia finally wore off and he was able to sleep more peacefully.  Needless to say, I didn't get around to writing a blog post last night!

Thankfully, this morning he was doing MUCH better.  He is eating like a champ and we are staying on top of his pain meds to keep him as comfortable as possible.  His incision is very long but looks wonderful - the vet at Kindest Cut who did the surgery did a great job on it.  I'll post a picture of it in a few days after it has healed a bit more - it's not too bad to look at, but it might be a bit much at this point for people who are squeamish about such things.

By afternoon, Murph was bored, which made me really, really happy - if he's feeling good enough to be bored, it's a good sign that he's on the mend :)  It is going to be a long couple of weeks, as his activity will be very restricted for the next 14 days.  He has to wear a shirt the whole time - they don't bandage the incision which will help it will heal faster, but he needs to wear the shirt to help keep it covered and clean.  He hasn't needed a cone yet, but I suspect that is coming so we are ready.

I'll end with one more picture - my caption for this one is: "When you're a husky and you like to lay on the tile by the front door where it is cool, but you're not allowed to do stairs and your mean old mama won't carry you down there..."