I’d like to tell you that Pooh was quite a trooper on the day of her surgery and I was impressed with her. However, she was VERY medicated and still a complete wimp. It was a long day and I spent a lot of it sitting on the floor with her. She could barely handle many of the minor things during the day and I was there the whole time she was conscious. Imagine a dog that is continually in flight mode attached to an IV! Yeah, that’s fun! I can’t count the number of times she tried to stand and leave the recovery kennel while I held my arms in front of her. Needless to say, any other day she would’ve won, but I had morphine and some other meds on my side so she would just teeter then lay back down. ;-)
As the day wore on I knew that my instincts about her medical care in the future were right. There are so many little things that I just can’t train for all of them. Clippers? Hadn’t thought of that and even on morphine she was fighting. Our vet clinic is fairly large, which is great when you need a variety of services or another vet to give an opinion, but not so great for a dog that doesn’t like strangers. As other people came and went from the prep room and tried to continue serving other animals it was quite an anxiety trigger.
Pooh came out of her meds around 10pm that night and wanted to lay on the couch with us. She was pretty whiny the next day, but I don’t think it was pain. I think it may have been just a hangover.
The following week, I got the call. Not cancer, completely benign, and not likely to return. Thank heavens. It’s not “That Time” yet.