This morning (8/21/03) Sydney got up and could barely walk, he hurt so bad from not being able to give him pain meds the past few days prior to surgery. He was happy to go for a ride to the vet's office. We arrived there right at 8am and there were already people in front of us. <sigh> Everyone in the lobby gushed over him and said what a happy boy he was. One lady had just experienced a cat with cancer and the leg was amputated and she said he adjusted fine. She chatted with us about cancer and it was nice to have a sympathetic person in our midst. She wished us well with Syd and said it would be okay.
We noticed his tumor was growing on his wrist, so we wondered between ourselves if maybe we could have the vet take an x-ray of the leg again so we could compare the two radiographs. We mentioned this first thing and my vet blew up saying that we were taking this way out of proportion, that we just needed to decide whether to do the amputation or not. I got a little angry and told him that yes, we still planned on going through with the amputation, but we just were curious about what it looked like on a radiograph compared to 3 weeks ago and that I wanted to learn as much as I can in case my other 5 dogs have to go through this, that's all. I told him we had no intention of backing out of the surgery, just wanted to learn as much as we can. I guess he realized we weren't trying to justify the surgery with more radiographs, but truly just trying to learn, so he mellowed out a little and took us into another room with Syd's first radiograph from 8/1/03 and showed us another x-ray of a normal dog's leg, then explained all the problems with Syd's radiograph. He talked to us about 15 minutes going through the x-rays and treatments, etc.
We then went back into the room and I asked him what to expect after surgery and asked him if we could come back before he woke up to see his incision site and he said that wouldn't be possible. He said he uses a sedative on him to make him sleepy, then he uses profolan (or something like that) for the anesthesia and he doesn't have to use as much, so that when they wake up, they do so quickly and aren't as groggy, nauseated, etc. He also said he would put him on deramaxx for any pain. He said he probably won't feel like eating or drinking and would probably have me wait until tonight to give him water, but would have me start giving him small amounts of food throughout the rest of the evening. He said I could help him walk by putting a beach towel under his neck and torso and assist him until he gets steady enough. He said he's probably going to be tired tonight. (since we couldn't give him any deramaxx yesterday, he spent most of the night crying off and on, so I know he hurts bad). He then explained where he would make the incision (just where the bone connects with the muscle at the shoulder). He also explained that if the tumor were higher up on the leg, he would amputate the scapula too. He said that is a longer and more detailed surgery and some people prefer it cause the muscles on that leg can atrophy slightly and we might see part of the scapula bone sticking out, but it's just due to that. He also said that he has also read that an administration of lidocaine into the nerves under his arm has shown that it helps human patients with the phantom leg syndrome and he's had real good luck with it in his animal patients, so he would do that. He also explained he would take 3 samples of tissue from the bone area to send to the University of Colorado for their study and a sample of bone for K-State for analysis since the oncologist he talked with yesterday insisted on having a biopsy done prior to administering chemo, so they know which protocol to use. He said he talked with K-State yesterday and they advised they wanted Syd up there late next week to start chemo (they usually wait 10 days after surgery, but that will only be like 7 days, so I'll have to call them to check out why so soon).
So anyway, Syd is probably either in surgery or just getting out of surgery and we'll call in a little bit to see how he's doing. Anyone got a valium for ME?????? |
