Well On Our Way To Recovery

Actually, recovery to normalcy hasn't seemed to have taken too long, after all. For which we're grateful indeed. Our little fellow hasn't minded taking his twice-daily dose of antibiotic tablets (offered to him encased in cheddar cheese), and he evinced unhappiness upon seeing others go out for daily walks, but not him.

We've hesitated to expose his surgical site to the dirt endemic to a trail walk, and haven't wanted to challenge him physically his first week post-surgery. He swiftly became accustomed to being sausaged into baby sleepers to ensure he couldn't access the surgical site, nor the stitches.

Mostly because he doesn't at all mind wearing little sweaters and jackets. He's always exhibited discomfort, shivering and trembling at the first sign of cooler weather and we've always dressed him in cooler weather, even in the house, in little tee-shirts once worn by our granddaughter when she was an infant.

Unlike his older, female companion, who simply detests what she must perceive as an insult to the dignity of her imperial person when we dress her in a doggy jacket for outdoor jaunts during the winter months.

We thought that the constant weeping of serum and blood through the area around the incision, kept open minimally by the shunt inserted in one small area, would eventually lessen and then cease, but it never did. Necessitating that his little suits - which handily "caught" the moisture weeping from his wound so it wouldn't drip everywhere - be changed regularly.

We had been instructed to bring Riley in to the veterinarian hospital six days after surgery for a post-operative check-up, at which time the shunt would likely be removed. However, the veterinarian, while expressing how well he was healing post-surgery, recommended that the shunt be allowed to remain in place for an additional 24 hours.

So it wasn't until the following day that the shunt was removed. And we were relieved to see it go. Not only because we found it distressing that he carried around that plastic channel, but because we were certain it was a source of irritation to our tiny dog. For a full day post removal of the shunt the wound kept oozing blood and serum, but by the following day it had ceased.

We now must wait another six to seven days for the removal of Riley's stitches. We're happy no end that the huge lipoma no longer resides between his stomach and his leg, forever growing larger. And although we were fairly confident on the evidence presented to us that his mobility hadn't yet been impaired, we do feel because part of the lipoma had intruded to his leg muscle, it hindered him from leaping and jumping. A physical act which we hope will now be restored to him.

And we hope that there will be no return of the lipoma, as can occur. We prefer to think of the 90% possibility it will not return, as opposed to the 10% potential for return. Those sound like pretty good odds.