We had to leave our house at about 6am to make it to the clinic on time for drop-off. I’m not a morning person (I usually roll out of bed 5 minutes before I have to log on my computer for work at 8 am). But I had no trouble getting up to give Atticus his trazadone at 5am, because I couldn’t sleep at all. I spent all night on the Tripawds website, looking at forum and blog posts.
Dropping Atticus off was so tough. I hugged him hard and held back my sobs until after he walked off, so I wouldn’t upset him. One of the surgery techs would call us when he was under anesthesia and ready to start surgery, and surgery would take around 3 hours.
I wound up taking a sick day from work. There was no way I could focus knowing what was happening to Atticus. I got the call at about 9am that he was under. 10 minutes later, I got another call from VCSS. I picked up, and it was Dr. Perry. My heart dropped. Was Atticus ok?
He was, but being completely under, Dr. Perry was finally able to get a really good exam on his leg. He found two lumps that he was highly concerned were possible sarcomas. He gave me the final out- if I wanted, we could biopsy the lumps, and put the surgery on hold pending those results.
I had to make the choice fast. Kevin was in a meeting, I couldn’t even ask his opinion. The cancer spreading in his leg was really bad news, but I remembered the pain he was in the day before, and what Trish said about the relentless pain he was in. The only way to get rid of that pain was removing the leg.
I told Dr. Perry to proceed with the surgery.
Thank you for sharing. This will be my Monday. Brody is scheduled early and we have an hour drive. I will then head to work and wait for phone call. We already know he has sarcoma so that call already happened. But knowing his pain should come to an end soon is my comfort.
Yes, thanks for sharing. You articulated very well what it’s like pre surgery day and day of surgery. All the while, Atticus wasn’t worried about a thing👍 And you got rid of his pain.
My Irish wolfhound girl is scheduled for surgery of front leg amputation on December 22. Very hard to sleep or focus on anything else. Trying to plan ahead about how to help her navigate–can she go down or up a step? How would she use the big dog door to go out? Will she need a harness/hoist to get up and down for a while? Poop and pee?
Thinking good thoughts for you and your girl. I know I sure didn’t get a lot of sleep in the few days leading up to surgery (or the week after, for that matter). If it helps- we used a harness with Atticus, although I understand a harness may irritate the incision for front limb amputees. I’ve seen a lot of videos/heard stories of dogs being able to walk off right after surgery. It took Atticus about three days to be able to walk, but as soon as he could walk, the two steps he needed to navigate to go outside were easy.