Ranger's Osteo-amputee Journey

[kjw]

I'm so glad Ranger is home with you, his family. He sounds like he's doing just greyt!

[Bevd]

Welcome home Ranger

[Remolacha]

sounds like things are going well! for an easy and completely uneventful recovery!

[nyGreys]

Sending prayers for Ranger. I hope he continues to improve.

[Guest ChasesMum]

how is he today?

 

George's surgery was a Friday (friday the 13th if you'd believe it) and it was on the Monday that he really started getting around well and was going outside etc for all his "business". Sounds like you are past the absolute worst of it, and onto the slow and steady healing part. WHEEE! Go Ranger!

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

UPDATE:

 

Well, the night was pretty uneventful. We created another bed station in the bedroom for him. He's always had a penchant for sleeping between the bed and the dresser. There were a couple of times when he just cried and cried and we couldn't console him. DH finally got a sleeping bag and spent the rest of the night on the floor next to him. That seemed to do the trick! I volunteered for tonight's sleeping bag round if necessary.

 

He's completely on his own, mastered the two large steps to the garage and the one large step to the backyard. He goes up and down amazingly well! He's become quite fond of the rabbit food, and we are mixing it with lots of other canned stuff to keep his diet balanced. I'm going to try and mix some of his regular kibble in with it later today to at least give his tummy something "normal."

 

Questions I've thought of:

Do they get back to running again as a tripod? Can they be just as fast as they were (off-track, of course)? Will his rear leg always get fatigued easily?

 

Do they poop the same as before? Or is there less hunching?

 

What about bathing? At some point, I'd like to get the adhesive off his back. Any suggestions on what to do in the present (bath-wise) ... and then how do they handle bathing later on once everything is healed? We always took him into the shower and he would stand there patiently waiting for us to finish the whole lather/rinse thing so he could get outside and dig in the mulch!!

 

 

I guess I want to have reasonable expectations, though I'm sure he will surprise me as he's already done!

 

Overall, a really good day so far He's resting comfortably and hasn't cried at all today. Off to go hang out with the Range and do the Sunday crossword!

Edited December 21, 2008 by RSD_Ranger

[crazygang]

You are amazing......and so is Ranger. Great news he's on the right road to recovery.

 

Sending well wishes to you and yours.

[queenwinniesmom]

I'm so glad he's home and doing well. You're doing a great job too!

To answer one of your questions, yes, they run! He will probably scare the poop out of you, but Ranger is going to be running again. In fact, I think sometimes it's easier for them to run than it is for them to walk. The tripod gait seems awkward as they have to hop along, but running....it just works. Here's Winnie keeping up with her younger, 4 legged sisters. I held my breath sometimes when she took off, but she just loved it so much that I had to let her do it. She would know when it was time to stop.

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

UPDATE:

 

Well, we are on day 5 post-amp. Today is supposed to be fentanyl patch removal day: ANY suggestions on how to get that thing off are GREYTLY appreciated! That thing is stuck on there good. Also, they put some gauze under adhesive tape over the rear-most part of his staples. The tape is starting to pull his skin and he's annoyed by it. That is also really stuck on there. I swear, the adhesive in these two things reminds me of those commercials for crazy glue where they glued the construction workers hardhat to a beam and he was hanging from it.

 

Some very interesting observations:

 

Pooping: He poops. It's not as hunched over as before, but it's a mini-hunch

 

Mobility: He is already moving his bed/blankets around as he used to pre-amp. He was always ritching his bed around by scratching it into place with his front legs. This often happened at 3am (to which we replied, "Ranger, lay down and go night-night!") well he was getting it all set last night. I just leaned over the bed and watched him. It was amazing: he'd do the right leg, then the left leg, then he'd lean his rear against the dresser to get the other leg going again. It's like he's just decided he's moving on and this is the way it is now.

 

Eating/Meds: He's eating like a champ. We're on dry food (made tempting through liberal usage of EVO 95% Rabbit!) but are eating a normal amount. Mommy is really crummy at timing the eating with the Sucralfate and Pepsid AC. The Sucralfate has to be given on an empty stomach, or 1 hour before eating or 2 hours after. The Pepsid has to wait at least 30 minutes from the Sucralfate admin. It get me all mixed up and my little chart is not helping. Luckily, he'll be done with one of them shortly.

 

Treatment: Our oncologist was very receptive to talking with Dr Couto's team. I'm so glad -- you never know if people will feel insulted you asked for a consultation. I'll be interested to hear if the treatment will change after they all put their heads together.

 

Running: we are severely limiting Ranger's movement to keep his staples in a good healing environment. I can tell you now, he will probably turn into a runner like Winnie. I've been warned that I need to keep a very close eye on him, as skidding out is likely to happen. But, he's already dragging us around the frozen snowy backyard. We are constantly making him slow down. He's just as crazy as he ever was!

 

Standing: Here's my favorite so far ... when he came in from his double-poop walk around the backyard this morning, he walked over to me and just stood there for about 5 minutes while I rubbed his ears and kissed his face. He didn't show any fatigue in his rear leg and I was so happy to see him enjoying the lovies. I couldn't believe he stood for that whole time.

 

I'm not sleeping well -- got my Mommy ears turned on to hear the slightest sound in the night and it's not working out. DH said he'd take overnights til he's off his nightly meds so I can get some sleep. DH is lucky that he can fall right back asleep after waking -- me, not so much. Tylenol's Simply Sleep is calling to me tonight

 

Overall, things are going well. Once I can get the adhesive-issue taken care of, we will just be in a holding pattern until we hear the actual biopsy results. There is still a slim chance this could be Multiple Myeloma vs OSA.

 

That's it for this installment. Off to try and get some work done while crazy boy sleeps :-D

[patricia]

What a wonderful update. Kiss that baby for me!

[Guest KiKi_Girl]

I just got back in town and saw this. Healing thoughts for Ranger and restfull thoughts for you. You have been doing so much in the search for Watson, I'm not sure how you are managing it all.

[mangos_mom]

That's just wonderful news!

[nettles]

Thanks for the update Kristen. Sounds like your boy is adjusting pretty good.

 

Rich

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

MINI-UPDATE:

 

Mineral oil is the secret on the fentanyl patch That, and a LOT of patience!!

 

Jen, my heart breaks each time I read that Watson isn't home. I just sit and hope and pray that he will have a warm Christmas by the fire

[CaliforniaGreys]

He's doing great Kristen!!!! He has a lot of spirit. We're praying for Watson too, this is a long one. Please give your handsome boy a gentle hug from us here

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

UPDATE:

 

Not for the faint of heart -- feel free to skip this update if you're grossed out easily.

 

Ew, yuck! So I got most of Ranger's adhesive off his staples. Down near his rump, the poor guy had some open sores that the tape was just stuck onto There was a little dark brown oozing (like chocolate pudding, ew) by a couple of staples. I just dried it up with some clean gauze. When I saw Range in the ICU on Thursday, they had put some gauze on and taped over it. Well, the tape was not sticking well, so I'm sure that's why they went with the kryptonite tape this time.

 

It took over 2 hours to remove 3/4 of the tape. The poor little guy was not happy. I went so slow, but it was really on there and when it was pulling his hairs, he would jerk his head back there to lick. I tried to put the E-collar on him. Wow, was that a mistake. He took off -- terrified of it! If he wasn't in such a state, it would have probably been funny. I was chasing him down the hall to try and remove it when he turned and bonked the collar into the door frame. Another comedic event to a bystander!

 

When I got to the tape part near his butt, I just could not keep pulling it no matter how slowly. I finally cut it off and left that part. I will try again later tonight. Since it is near his incision, the doctor said not to get it wet or use the mineral oil. The only way to remove it is by slowly pulling on his skin and hair. If someone did that to me, I would surely bite them! And there's no pulling it off fast, because I don't want to chance opening his incision (which is healing pretty nicely).

 

There were some small areas on the pink side (vs the fur side) of the incision that the tape had obviously irritated and they were weepy still. I cleaned them up with plain water and they are pink and shiny now. If he was a skin-kid, I'd have neosporin all over that by now with a fresh Band-Aid!!

 

Just noting this for any future incision "doctors at home" who have to remove stuff.

[Batmom]

Might try some neosporin ointment under the edge of the remaining tape.

 

Sending lots of hugs for your sweet, patient boy.

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

Might try some neosporin ointment under the edge of the remaining tape.

 

Sending lots of hugs for your sweet, patient boy.

I didn't know if neosporin was ok for dogs or not.

 

That is a fantastic idea! Thank you!!

[Batmom]

Your vet probably wants you to keep the incision as dry and unmessed-with as possible, but if a smear of neosporin got close to it, it wouldn't hurt anything.

[Guest HersheysMom]

Was offline this weekend - just seeing this. Sending tons of hugs and prayers for Ranger.

 

[Guest K9_Lady]

Ranger, Miss Amy is sending you lots of

 

Kristen, you and Hubby are doing a great job!!

[Neighsayer]

How is he doing today? Did he have a quiet night? Hope all is well.

[RobinM]

UPDATE:

 

Questions I've thought of:

Do they get back to running again as a tripod? Yes, they can and most do. It took Polli about 8 weeks to be running. Can they be just as fast as they were (off-track, of course)? NO Will his rear leg always get fatigued easily? Most probably, it's something you don't want to abuse by any means. Those other 3 legs have a lot of work to do.

 

Do they poop the same as before? Or is there less hunching? Polli is a front leg amputation so she puts her existing leg in the middle to balance.

 

What about bathing? At some point, I'd like to get the adhesive off his back. Any suggestions on what to do in the present (bath-wise) ... and then how do they handle bathing later on once everything is healed? We always took him into the shower and he would stand there patiently waiting for us to finish the whole lather/rinse thing so he could get outside and dig in the mulch!!

 

For the time being, just do a sponge bath but in a few months you can do it as you used to.

I guess I want to have reasonable expectations, though I'm sure he will surprise me as he's already done!

 

Overall, a really good day so far He's resting comfortably and hasn't cried at all today. Off to go hang out with the Range and do the Sunday crossword!

 

Continued prayers for a speedy recovery.

Edited December 23, 2008 by RobinM

[Guest RSD_Ranger]

UPDATE: (thanks for the reminder!!)

 

It's been a crazy day around here. Unfortunately, Ranger is in some pain. He's woken himself from a sleep 4-5 times today crying out in pain. Not the whimpering pain cry, but the howling, "Make it stop, Mommy!" cry. It is heartbreaking. We've checked everywhere, but there is no visible source. So we are assuming it is healing pain or something to do with his amp. I have a call in to the surgeon and as soon as someone is available to review his chart, they will call me back to let me know if we can up his tramadol.

 

The adhesive tape still has about 1" of stuff left on the hair under his butt. Everytime I try to move it, he cries. So, I just slowly remove it a bit at a time and cut off the part I got loose. It's also heartbreaking.

 

He is still getting around well, though since his last freak out on his big bed area in the family room, he has not wanted to lay on the bed. I don't know if he thinks the bed caused the pain or what, but he's laying directly on the carpet near the kitchen. He's sleeping, so I'll leave him alone.

 

His staples look good, though the skin underneath looks so raw and tight. I put some neosporin on the oozing owie area on his skin last night and that is healing up nicely. The skin that is actually under the staples looks a bit swollen, so we iced it for a few minutes a couple times today. We don't want to decrease the blood flow, but we want to get the swelling down a bit too. I'm going to ask the surgeon if he/she thinks heat or cold will do better in that area.

 

His bathroom breaks are really normal now. He's eating about 1-1/2 times what he ate before to try and get some of the weight he lost back on. His little ribs are all visible now and we'd like to just get it back close to normal before we hit the chemo loss of appetite.

 

The oncologist called today to say she was going to be out of town for a couple of days, but would be checking on his results as she can. At this point, there's no real rush on getting the results back ... it's not like anyone is going to be calling and telling us this isn't cancer. She also informed me that they generally don't start chemo until 10-14 days after surgery to allow as much healing as possible. So we've got time to find out the results.

 

One note: we thought fluffy beds would help ease his joints. This was really stupid on our parts. Fluffy beds make it very hard to maneuver on one rear leg. We've now replaced the nice new fluffy beds with old flat beds. I guess it's just like rolling around on a dead squirrel right after you've had a bath -- what might work for humans doesn't necessarily work for pups!

 

Waiting for the snow to stop so I.can.get.out.of.the.house. I swear, I'm going stir crazy! I told the DH today that he was lucky to be able to go to work -- he looked at me like I'd just lost my marbles. Well, I think they may be gone!

 

Marbles, marbles, wherefore art those marbles????

 

 

 

Ranger, Miss Amy is sending you lots of

 

Kristen, you and Hubby are doing a great job!!

We should set up a play-date this spring with Miss Amy

[CaliforniaGreys]

Hoping you got that call so you can up the Tramadol. Hoping the handsome boy is comfortable