We went to AMVS at 2pm to get Winston. They gave us a bag of medicine and then went over his discharge instructions -- we got another report with his picture on the cover. It was color again, but they took it when he was groggy (either before or after surgery) and he looks really sad. Poor boy!
Anyway, I was surprised that the instructions are very similar to the Tightrope surgery. He's to be confined for 2 weeks and then we start walking. We aren't supposed to increase the lengths of the walks as often though. At week 2-4 we walk for 5 minutes 3-4 times a day and then weeks 5-6 we increase it to 10 minutes per walk, and so on. They have also changed the way they do physical therapy. Last time, our first PT visit was at least one week after surgery and we were supposed to do the passive excercises on our own before that. This time they want us to schedule the first PT visit 2-3 days after surgery so that the physical therapists can show us how to do the passive exercises. This seems like a much better way to do it because I was unsure of what I should and shouldn't do and I had to wait a week before the physical therapist could show me right and wrong ways to do it.
We were ready at home; we washed all of his bedding and vacuumed and mopped his room, and put the exercise pen back up, and I took 2 days off of work so that I can take care of him. Don isn't as busy, but will probably still go to work each day.
When they brought Winston out with his satellite dish on (he just hates that because he has to swing it around from side to side so that he can see!), we were pretty excited to see that he was already putting more weight on it than he has since mid April. Wow! Instant success. They had shaved a larger area on his back for the epidural and we laughed because he's got a tan line from his previous surgeries.
I was prepared with extra towels in the car for the urine leak issue, so it didn't surprise me that he was leaky. I'd wondered before we went to get him how we would try to keep the incision dry since it's on the inside of the leg, but I shouldn't have worried. They had some sort of plastic sheet over the entire incision. It looked like saran wrap. They said that it would eventually start to peel off on its own, and we could remove it once that started.
He gave out a loud moan as we turned onto the highway before our house, and kept whining for the next 10 minutes until we got home. Don thought he was in pain, but I recognized that as his "I've REALLY got to go potty NOW" noises. As soon as we stopped the car, we dashed around back and got him unloaded as quick as we could. He hurried into the yard and took (left) a big old dump and then peed for about 5 minutes. Poor boy! He seemed to feel much better once that was out of the way, and immediately went to bed and slept for several hours.
He's shifting from leg to leg as he sleeps again. First he'll lie on the surgery leg, and then he'll lie on the other one. When he's on the surgery leg, he keeps it kind of tucked up so that I can't get to the knee or even see the incision, so I have to wait for him to leave that side up so that I can ice the joint. He seems to say, "Ah.... that feels good" when I use the ice pack.
At dinner time, he's interested in food. I'm unsure how much to feed him so I try a cup of kibble and one of the 5.5 oz cans of Mighty Dog on top. He eats it all.
The pill schedule is off again, so I set my alarm for 2 am and get up to give him pills, but he didn't need to go out again until morning. That's odd, but kind of nice.
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