Our Yorkie, Hawg went through surgery yesterday to remove some kidney stones from his bladder. I didn't sleep well all night on Thursday night, worrying about if I had made the right decision, if I had picked the right vet (he was the only one in a 50 mile radius..so that was sort of a no-brainer) and if I should have gotten a second opinion. It is probably very common for anyone who has to take care of a child, person or animal to second guess decisions that are a little risky. By Friday morning, I was almost a basket case, wondering if I did the right thing.The Animal Hospital told me that Hawg would be out of surgery by noon, so of course, I called at 11:30 to see if he was out yet. My hands were sweating when I dialed their number. Imagine my stress when they told me he hadn't even gotten into surgery yet. They probably had some other emergencies that took priority, but I was even more worried, because my waiting wasn't close to being over. The nurse did tell me to call back by 2 pm to see how he was doing, she was sure he would be out by then. Two hours can be an eternity for someone worrying...
At 1:30 I received a call from the Animal Hospital. My heart leapt into my throat, I figured something went terribly wrong, but was glad to hear the nurse on the other line tell me Hawg came through surgery just fine, but there were some complications...minor, and fixed, but complications all the same. He had not 1 but 3 kidney stones lodged in his ureter. Prior to the surgery, they had tried to flush the stone back into the kidney, to no avail. So the vet had to open part of his "wanker" (this is a 'G' rated blog...;-0) to get out the stones. It turns out that the vet removed a total of 7 kidney stones versus the 5 we had originally seen in the X-ray. That really was the only complication. Hawg came through the surgery fine, but they wanted to keep him overnight in case of any complications.
Well, after much worrying on my part, I called the Animal Hospital to find out if I could still pick Hawg up today. I worried that something bad happened overnight, and wanted to know for sure if he really would be OK. They did confirm that I could come and get Hawg shortly. You can bet I jumped right on the bike and hustled my little butt right over to the animal hospital. By the time I got there, I was a nervous wreck. The nurse told me it would be a few more minutes before they could get him ready to see me.
Next thing I know, I hear this noise, and here is Hawg, wiggling like mad to get to me. Boy did that do my heart good. He was as wiggly as usual. Then I looked quickly at what I thought would be a relatively small incision. I probably should not have done that, but I wanted to see what we had to deal with. Poor Hawg, it looks like he has about 5-6 stitches (I couldn't really count that well) running along the side of his "wanker" and a few stitches where his kidneys were. I am not sure if there are more stitches, his hair is pretty matted and still a bit messy, so until I can bathe him, I am not sure how many more stitches there are. My bet is he has probably a total of 10 stitches in a 6 pound little Yorkie. No wonder he was a bit sore. To top that all off, because they had tried to flush the kidney stones back into the kidney, he had been catheterized too, so he was bruised a bunch too. Poor little guy...
How many guys are squirming uncomfortably right now? Steve did the same thing when I tried to tell him what they did to his little Hawg. As it stands, Steve tried to look at the incision, and turned at least 10 shades of white, cringed and ran off. Some support system... ;-0 Glad I don't have to clean the area yet. The good news is that on the request of the Surgeon, we will be staying through Monday, so he can check Hawg out and be sure he is healing OK. Then it will be 10 days before the stitches can be removed. We will have to find another vet to do that, there is no way even I would want to try to remove stitches in Hawg's most private parts...heaven forbid if I twitch and nick him...(OK, you guys squirming again?).
Anyway, Hawg is back with us and on the mend. We are striving to keep him quiet and not jump so he doesn't pull anything. Gypsy is glad to have him back, but she thinks he smells funny and she is a bit jealous of the attention we are providing Hawg. He gets picked up if he wants up on the couch, and Gypsy still has to jump up herself. The good news for Gypsy is that she still gets walked by herself. I do not want to be walking two dogs at the same time when Hawg is still healing. I am trying to give Gypsy extra attention, so she won't feel too left out.
Hopefully in the next 14 days, Hawg will be back to his old self and this will just be a bad dream to him. Looking forward to quick healing. The even better news is that the vet said it was OK for us to start giving Hawg his StemPet immediately. He took it with no problems. I will probably double his dose during these early healing days, so that he can heal a little quicker. I will let you know how well that works. I still believe that StemPet kept Hawg from getting major infections while he was trying to pass those kidney stones. He could have been in bad shape by the time I brought him in. The surgeon kept telling me how impressed he was with Hawg's overall condition. Gotta thank StemPet for that to some degree...
Please let me know if you have any questions about the StemPet products or the human products, StemEnhance.
Until tomorrow...
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