Friday, January 16, 2009

A Rough Start

We picked Rudi up from the vet hospital at 6pm tonight. It started off on a bad foot right from the beginning and I had a bad feeling about how the rest of the night was going to go. We walk in and announce that we are there to pick up Rudi. The night shift ER vet techs were on duty and I don't think they were expecting us. Took them a minute to even figure out who Rudi was. Irked me of course. One of the girls was very rude. Never really acting caring at all so I was totally put off by that. The other tech was very helpful and went to work gathering Rudi's discharge paperwork. We were told to pull our car around the side so he didn't have to walk very far. Before I could get everything signed and squared away and even move my car out comes Rudi. Why they did that was beyond me. He shouldn't be on his feet for a long period of time and we weren't even prepared. We were told he would come out once we were done with the paperwork process. The biggest issue was that he had a huge square shaved into his side. That startled me and when I asked about it no one had an answer. Said I could call Dr. Stallings on Monday. I persisted in knowing why that area was shaved....was something wrong during surgery etc? They didn't do that last year. Still was told to call Monday. I was very frustrated and walked out the door a bit angry.
Rudi cried the whole way home. He seemed very uncomfortable. We got home safely and he pee peed right away for what seemed like 5 minutes. He leaned on his surgical leg which he isn't supposed to but didn't know how to shift him in mid-potty. We got him inside and into his crate. I got a good look at his incision and it appeared very swollen and bruised. Very angry looking compared to the last surgery. He could not get comfortable and constantly whined into what seemed like at times a howl. Before I knew it and could control it I had tears streaming down my face while I tried to comfort my boy and soothe him. Nothing worked. I resulted to the pain meds quickly and put it in food. He ate all of his food and had water. Good signs. Still cried after the pain meds, slept for 5 min and up again crying. That cycle has continued all night long. I've been on the phone with the vet on call because this wasn't what happened last time and I'm worried about him. He said I could up his pain meds dosage and give him one of his sedatives so he could relax. He read his file and said everything went well during surgery so not to be alarmed but if he got more red and swollen to bring him back.
Not sure how tonight will pan out but he's getting ready to get his sedative so we can all try to sleep. It's going to be a long night and I think this recovery process is going to be a rougher ride than the first.

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