Project Recovery: Day 54

Today = Freedom!!!

Bean's appoimtment with the surgeon this morning went great. Dr. Clarke gave her a clean bill of health and told us that we could stop her confinement immediately and gradually introduce more activity until she was back to her usual routine.

When we got home, Bryan walked her inside and she headed straight for her penned-in little recovery area. She was certainly surprised when we took her off leash instead and let her walk around on her own! She walked around the downstairs part of the house all afternoon, just checking out all the rooms and sniffing all the furniture. I guess she forgot what it smells like?

Our plan is to confine her to the first floor of the house for one week. We have baby-gated the bottom of the stairs. Then she will be allowed upstairs but will be kept inside for another week. And then, in two weeks, we will take the cover off the dog door and let her have her backyard back. She will be so thrilled!

We are so happy to have our puppy back. She is putting weight on the new knee, and there is not a limp or anything anymore. It's amazing what Dr. Clarke was able to do. But what's even more amazing, what I will never forget, is how all of you pitched in to help make this happen. We will always be so grateful.

Thanks everyone! I'm baaaaaaaaaccccckk!!

Project Recovery: Day 44

Sorry for the long absence folks. We have been having a bit of trouble with our internet service (Darn you, Verizon! Darn you to heck!!!). We are in the process of switching ISPs and should be back to our regular high-speed selves soon.

In the meantime, I spent twenty minutes uploading a photo for you. I hope you like it:

Mmmm......rawhide......

As you can see, Bean is continuing to improve. In fact, she now feels so good that she does not feel the need for further recovery, and is emitting a constant, high-pitched whistle to let us know that she is done, much like a little kettle. There are only three instances in which she does not make this noise: when she is being walked, when she is sleeping (which is not happening as much as it used to), and when she is chewing on rawhide. As you can imagine, we are going through quite a bit of the stuff over here!

Oh, and she has her 8-week follow-up appointment with the surgeon on the 26th of June, during which we will find out if Bean needs an additional 4 weeks of confinement, or if she will be be released early on good behavior.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Project Recovery: Day 35

Bean has a history of taking out her frustration on her stuffed animals (see previous post), so it was no surprise when we noticed the stuffies in her "cell" starting to look a little mutilated. Many of them are missing faces, and all of them are little lighter since they "met" Bean, due to severe hemorrhage of stuffing.

What surprised me was a recent, unprecedented act of kindness she performed for one of these poor creatures. I walked by one day and saw that she was allowing the gray kitty to have first dibs at her breakfast.


I can only guess that she made a deal with God - that she will start showing mercy and remorse for her past acts of violence against these innocent creatures in exchange for a speedy release from her own hexagonal prison of sin.

Well, if nothing else good comes from all of this, at least our little Bean has found religion.

Project Recovery: Day 32

This blog seems to be full of examples of sub-standard parenting these days. What can I say? We are doing the best we can in a difficult situation.

Don't judge me!!

Exhibit #352:

What do you do when the (dog's) valium is no longer working but it's too early for the next dose; you are out of rawhide chews; you can't make a peanut butter Kong because you are out of peanut butter; Bryan is hours away from coming home to relieve you of duty; and your dog is repeatedly making a sound that is just slightly more bone-chilling than that of a dentist's drill?

Answer: Give the dog the remains of the peanut butter jar and let her tire herself out trying to lick the peanut butter residue out. You are smarter than she is, and know that her tongue will never reach all the way to the bottom, and that she will fall over from exhaustion before giving up.

Uh...guys?...I don't feel too good...

I realize that this is equivalent of me posting a picture of my toddler passed out on an empty jumbo-sized bag of Cheetos. I am not ashamed. If I had any such pictures, I'd post them too. But we are years away from having a baby other than Bean. So for now, she will have to bear the brunt of my poor parenting skills.

Project recovery: Day 25

I am almost ashamed to admit this one. Given that I have several years of medical training under my belt, you would think I would have figured this out much sooner. Let's see how you do:

Say you had surgery (let's call it knee surgery, for the sake of this example) that would decrease the amount of your daily physical activity by over 90% for about 12 weeks. Say that after said surgery, you continued the same caloric intake that you were eating pre-operatively. You would expect your weight to:

a) decrease
b) remain constant
c) increase
d) explode exponentially

If you chose "d" , then congratulations! You are smarter than we are! We noticed a week or so ago that Bean was looking a little ....well..."husky." She was also getting way too tired after even the short 5-minute walk she gets three times a day. Then one day, while we were watching a movie in the living room where her dog-prison is kept, she sat up to reveal an unmistakably rounded belly. After laughing for a few minutes, I jumped up and got the camera. Here is Bean's first fat photo - a milestone in any girl's life. I am so proud of my baby!

We have since cut back on the amount of food we feed her.

I am NOT fat!! I am just big boned.

Project Recovery: Day 23

Forgive the lack of posts this past week. Things have been going so well with Bean, I actually got to catch up on my non-Bean life. That's progress! I did take some very cute pictures of her which I will be posting here over the next few days. They are too cute to post all at once. So you'll just have to come back, won't you? :)

As you can see from the photo below, there are two things that we no longer have to deal with. Can you tell? No more diapers and no more E-collar! You would think that this would make Bean happier. And for a day or two it did. But now it just seems that all of her attention is focused on the last obstacle, that final frontier of this whole process - the confinement.

What can I say? She wants out!! And if I dare to open the back door (which leads out to her "room" - the fenced in backyard) she starts crying so loudly that I feel like an asshole for rubbing it in her face and I immediately shut the door again. It's just like a teenager shrieking, "Moooooooooommmm!!!!!!!! Stay out of my rooooom! .......... GAWD!!"

But seriously mom, stay out of my room, OK?

Project Recovery: Day 14

Things have improved drastically in the past week. Out of the 3 things that were making our lives suck, I am thrilled to report that we have made serious progress on all 3 fronts:

1) Diarrhea
Gone! Our vet cured her. She is down to one poop a day (two if it's a big day). The process of deep cleaning the first floor of our house has begun. I wonder if you can buy Soft Scrub by the case?

2) E-collar
The staples came out on Monday, but since Bean just can't leave well enough alone and was licking at her incision, she has to wear the E-collar until Saturday. But then we will be rid of it! She has been clumsy with it on (understandably), and can't see where she is putting her front paws. She has twice now accidentally stepped in and overturned her water bowl. But I am not complaining. I would much rather clean up spilled water than poop!

3) Confinement
Bean is two weeks out from her surgery, and the doctor says she can now have three 5-minute walks per day. This means going to the end of our street and back. At the end of the street is a little grassy area, which we spend some time in before heading back. Bean, the little angel, has figured that we want her to poop and pee here on this area if she can. So we have had no more poops in the house, and only one pee. We can increase her walks by 5 minutes in 2 weeks.

Things are looking up! Thanks for the kind words during the rough patch. And keep checking for updates.

Project Recovery: Day 7

Things here are really hard right now. I am feeling a little desperate. Issues include:

1) The diarrhea.
It's still here. We have switched antibiotics. We have de-wormed her (did I mention the worms? No? Well, that was for your own good then.) We have given her bowls of Kaopectate. We have done 5 loads of laundry a day. There is still poop everywhere.

2) The E-collar.
She still needs it. She still has her staples in over her knee, and what's worse, she tends to lick her butt if it's off. Her butt, which is now absolutely raw from the non-stop pooping. So we have to keep the E-collar for the next week at least.

3) The confinement.
The sedatives she was sent home on weren't cutting it. Yesterday she was switched to valium, but last night was just as bad. She wants out. She doesn't understand why she can't run around in the backyard and have unlimited access to the house. She doesn't understand why she has to spend all day in a little hexagon-shaped plastic jail. She voices this frustration (literally) by wailing and crying at all hours. Bryan and I switch off "sleeping" downstairs on the couch next to her. It doesn't matter though, because she still cries and neither of us gets any sleep.

For all of these reasons (and probably more, I can't think right now. no sleep) I have had to take Bean to our regular vet almost every day this week for day-boarding, so that I can get some sleep, and make some progress on laundry and de-pooping of the house. Then Bryan picks her up at night, and we start another 12 hours of sleepless, poop-y misery. I feel so guilty for not being able to take care of her myself. I am sitting here in tears as I write this. I didn't know this would be so hard. I definitely would have waited until Bryan was out for the summer (he's a school teacher) before having the surgery done.

This is not a one-person job.

Project recovery: Day 5

I haven't posted in a few days. Why is that, you ask? Well folks, although I will explain in further detail below, the reason can really be summed up in one short word.

Poop.

Poop everywhere. Magical Poop that defies the laws of physics as I had understood them up until this point in my life. Poop that can separate itself in order to fly through the small holes in the walls of a dog play pen and then reform into one giant ball on the electrical socket of the far wall. Our lives these last few days have consisted of little more than laundry, wiping dog butt, laundry, sleeping in shifts, and laundry.

We now know the reason for this. When Bean was discharged after her surgery, she was sent home on an antibiotic called Cephalexin to prevent infection of her surgical site. Apparently, somewhere along Bean's intestinal tract there is a small faucet. What Cephalexin did, basically, was to get into our dog, locate that faucet, and switch it to the "on" position.

On Saturday night, it was so bad that she was just leaking poop up to 5-6 times an hour. At 3:00 am we took her to the emergency clinic, which is no more than 4 miles from our house. She pooped twice in the car on the way there. The doctor there stopped the Cephalexin and switched her to another antibiotic, Metronidazole. They also gave her IV fluids because she was so dehydrated, and switched her to a special diet of bland canned food for a few days.

I am thrilled to report that she is improving, and the worst seems to be over.

We have learned several new and highly marketable skills during all of this. I myself now have a spooky ability to tell when she is about to poop, even before she goes into the telltale "squat" position. We also can both put a diaper on a dog while she is walking away from us. Didn't know they made diapers for dogs? You lucky, lucky thing. Yes, they do. And yes, they have a hole for the tail to poke through. I used to see them in Petsmart and giggle to myself, thinking what kind of sad person would actually diaper their dog. Not me. Oh no, I'd just let the thing run around in the back yard till it felt better, then hose it down before bringing back in. Well, I am here to tell you people, Karma is a B.

A diaper AND an E-collar? What fresh hell is this?

Please tell me you are NOT going to post these on the internet!

Project Recovery: Day 2

I know I should post an account of how last night went for Bean, but the truth is, I don't really know. The reason? Because I have such a wonderful husband.

Let me explain. I didn't sleep a wink the night that Bean spent in the hospital. I was just too worried. So, soon after we brought her home yesterday, I became exhausted. Bean hates the e-collar, and had forgotten that she can lie down while wearing one. The poor thing was almost falling over from fatigue. Her eyes would start closing, and she would get closer and closer to the ground, but as soon as the rim of her collar touched the blankets, she shot back up. This went on for-EVER.

I finally got into the pen and lay down with her, trying to soothe her to sleep. This didn't work either. Eventually it was time for her nightly dose of sedative. We gave her that, and she fell right asleep. At that point, I was so tired I couldn't see straight. Bryan told me he would watch her and I should go ahead to bed. Which I did, and I slept like a rock.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to find that he wasn't in bed with me. That's when I came downstairs to find this:

How cute is this? He opened the little fold-out futon couch and incorporated it into the recovery area. If he is half as good a dad to our actual human baby as he is to Bean, that will be one lucky kid.

Project Recovery: Day 1 (Welcome Home Bean!)

Well, we just brought Bean home from the hospital, and she is pitiful!!! She has a shaved leg, about 15-20 staples over her incision, an e-collar (cone) on her head to keep her from messing with the incision, and a fentanyl patch for pain. She is most miserable about the e-collar. We know this from previous experience. All she does so far is stand still in her "recovery area" and cry a really, really sad cry. It's kind of like a chirp. I got some of it on video, but it's too dark to see anything. It's really too sad to even post.

But she is home!

Oh, and you know how I was freaked out about the 8 weeks of this I have to look forward to? Turns out I needn't have worried about that, because is not 8 weeks of recovery. It's TWELVE WEEKS. That's 3 months of this. Someone help us! Please keep us in your prayers. Bean will miss the whole summer at this rate.

I am going to lay down in the pen with her now, and see if that calms her down any.

Whew! Now for phase II - Healing.

Thanks again everyone!

Project Bionic Leg: The Big Day! (update)

I just spoke with Dr. Clarke. He said the surgery went well, and Bean tolerated the anesthesia as expected. She is awake and in recovery. Thank God!!

He also said that when he went into her knee, he saw that she had both the patella problem (which we knew about) and a torn ACL (which we suspected). He was able to fix both at once only because all of you have been so generous. If we had not been able to raise enough money to cover both procedures, we might have had to have the two surgeries separately, and that would have been awful!!!

Why? Because now we are in for a long, hard 8 week long recovery process. We haven't even begun it yet and already I know that it is something I don't want to go through more than once. Thankfully, soon school will be out and Bryan will be home to help me with her.

Tonight we are going to go get supplies and come home to set up her recovery area in the living room, to which she will be confined for the next 8 weeks, excluding bathroom breaks 3 times a day.

Tomorrow we get to bring her home! I will post pictures of the homecoming, of course.

Thanks again!

Project Bionic Leg: The Big Day!

I dropped Bean off at the surgical practice this morning at 8:00 am. She was so excited to actually be on a leash, leaving the house, that she didn't pay me any attention at all. She was looking out the window and licking the glass on the way to Cary. It was a nice enough morning, so I let the window down. Then she stuck her head out and "smiled" at passers-by in other vehicles. Now, to a non-dog-lover, a pit bull smile can look terrifying, and more like an attempt to show all their teeth before they eat you whole. So we got some scared looks, but mostly she got smiles in return.

By the time we got to the clinic, she was so excited her entire body wiggled from head to tail. I anchored her leash to the check in counter to register her and take these pictures. She had a smile and a squeal for everyone that walked by, and the vet tech who came to take her back was almost overpowered by kisses and licks.

All this made it easier for me to stand leaving her there. She looked like I had dropped her off at Disney world, not like she was going to go have painful joint surgery. But still, as soon as I got back to the car, I started crying.

She is probably having the surgery this very minute. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. My sweet little Beanie-Baby. Mommy loves you so much.

Today's photo:

Where are the toys? My doggie camp, the one where I get to spend holidays while mommy and daddy visit their two-legged relatives, has lots of toys. And a pool. Maybe the pool's behind that door over there....

Project Bionic Leg: 1 day till surgery

Ding Ding Ding!! We did it! The goal has been reached (and then some!!)

There were times in the beginning that I thought, "man this is a long shot!" But we did it! I still can't believe it. I am amazed at how many people from all over the country got involved in this. And now you all get to sit back and watch the results of your generosity. I will be documenting both the surgery and the recovery on this blog, so please keep on reading. I predict that in 2 months you will see a picture of a healthy, happy dog being taken on a real honest-to-goodness WALK, outside of the house!!!

Thanks again everybody!!!

Today's photo:

Ughhhhhh. I am soooo bored. I remember back when I was younger, years ago I think, mom and dad used to do this thing where they would attach a stringy thing to me and we would go patrol the neighborhood together. Man, that was fun. I guess that's just history now. But I remember. Je me souviens!!!

Project Bionic Leg: 2 days till surgery

It's kind of like the calm before the storm around here. After some very helpful comments folks made to yesterday's post, I am much more ok with the idea of Bean staying overnight in the hospital. I am sure it will be the safest thing to do. We are going to spend Thursday night (the night she will be in the hospital) setting up her "recovery area" in the living room. I want to have everything ready for when we bring her home on Friday. Today when Bryan got home from work, we all hung out on the front porch for an hour or so. Bean enjoyed watching the neighborhood, Bryan read, and I cleaned. You would be amazed to know how dirty a front porch can get! I don't think ours has ever been cleaned before. At least not since we moved in.

As far as fundraising goes, we are sooooooo close, at 98% of the goal. If you are reading this and you haven't donated yet, now is the time! YOU could be the one to put us over the top!!

Today's Photo:

I love hanging out with my dad. He is the coolest dad ever. I'm not even scared of his new rocking chair...at least not anymore.

Project Bionic Leg: 3 days till surgery

I am starting to get nervous, y'all. Not about the money (thank goodness!!). We have 97% of what we need, and I am sure the rest will trickle in. But, I just got off the phone with the vet hospital where Bean will have her surgery. I had called to make sure I understood her pre-op instructions. You know - when we should stop her food and meds, what to bring on the day of surgery, that kind of thing. The lady on the phone was really nice. Everyone there has been very nice, which is comforting. But when I asked what time we could come back and pick up our Bean, she informed me that Bean will have to be dropped off on Thursday morning, and picked up on Friday afternoon.

Can you spot the problem? Anyone??

I have to leave my baby all alone in the hospital overnight!!!!!!!!!!! I am a little freaked out by this. The woman on the phone assured me that she would be fine. There is an after-hours pet Emergency Center that is run out of the clinic at night, so she will not technically be alone in the building. And they will check on her. And I am sure they are all qualified and professional and everything, but they are NOT her MOMMY! I swear, if they would let me bunk down on the floor beside her crate in there, I'd do it. I mean, wouldn't you?

Today's photo:

How could you leave me all alone and afraid? How?! Don't you know what that will do to my sense of security? You DO want me to grow up to be well-adjusted doggie, without "issues", don't you?

Project Bionic Leg: 4 days till surgery

We really are almost there folks, both in terms of time and money. 4 days till the big day. And all totaled up we are at 96% of the goal! Even I am shocked that we have come this far. Just a little more to go before the surgery is paid for and over. Then the healing begins. To be honest, I am more afraid of the healing than the surgery. (I am sure Bean would disagree!) I just don't understand how we are supposed to keep her from putting weight on her leg for EIGHT WEEKS?? It just doesn't seem possible, unless they put her into some kind of coma and keep her in the hospital. But instead, she will be partially sedated, and will be at home with us to look after her. There is a lot riding on her recovery. If she puts too much weight on it before she is ready, she may very well undo all the work the surgeon has done.

There is NO way I am going to let that happen after all that you guys have done to help make this surgery possible. I will sit on her myself for the whole 8 weeks if I have to!!

Today's Photo:

What??!! I can't run for 8 WEEKS!!! Just WHEN were you going to tell me THAT part, mom? Huh?! What else don't I know about this "surgery" thing?? By the way, I've been meaning to ask...what exactly is "surgery" anyway?

Project Bionic Leg: 5 days till surgery

We are in the home stretch here, at 91% of the goal (that's including the off-line donations as well). But please don't stop yet! If you have been planning on giving, now's the time. And any money we raise in excess of the surgical costs will go to Bean's post-op meds and rehab. And also a doggie playpen like this one, to keep her confined while healing. Doctor's orders state that she is to be confined to an area no larger than 3 times her body length. That's about the size of a small bathroom. She will be unable to walk on slick floors, and of course our house is covered in hardwoods and vinyl. My plan is to make a "safe area" for bean by laying down blankets, then putting this playpen on it. If we set it up in the main room, she will not feel so isolated, and we can keep a close eye on our sedated little princess. Of course, there will be very frequent photos of her recovery posted here!


Today's photo:

I'm practicing my "sedated" face. How does it look?

Project Bionic Leg: 6 days till surgery

We are at 84% of the goal today - not a huge increase from yesterday, but I have faith we'll get there in time. We didn't come this far just by luck!

Surgery is less than one week away, and we have started to make preparations.
Phase 1 = the last bath.

I do not think we will be able to bathe Bean for some time after the surgery. She had started to smell a little fishy, which is odd because 1) we don't live near the ocean, and 2) Bryan has adamantly denied rubbing her down with cod fillets while I am out.

The last bath went much like any other bath, and consisted of the following steps:

Step 1 - The capture.
Bean will not willingly get into the bathtub. She must be caught and carried into the bathroom, then lowered into the tub. Since Bryan is the only one with the upper body strength to accomplish this, he is the designated dog-bather. (Don't feel too bad for him though. I am the designated tub-cleaner afterwards.)
Step 2 - The bathing.
This part is not so bad. Bean actually quite likes the taste of the shampoo. She doesn't like getting her head washed though, and tries to keep it over the edge of the tub as much as possible, hoping we will forget to wash it.

Step 3 - the toweling off.
This is a most crucial step, and must never be skipped. Bean has other, much messier, ways of drying herself off if we don't do it for her. Mainly they involve running to the nearest piece of upholstered furniture and doing a frantic, whole-body shake until said piece of furniture is sopping with dog bathwater.

Step 4 - the brushing of the teeth.
After the bath, Bean smells like peaches and the foulness of her breath becomes even more noticeable. At this point it is wise to brush as many of her teeth as she will let us. During this particular session, Bryan chose to focus on the tiny little bat-like teeth in the front.

No walks, a hurt knee, AND a bath?!! This is the worst month of my whole life so far. I wonder what's next? I mean what could suck more than this? Bone Surgery??? But no, not even the humans are that cruel. Right?

Project Bionic Leg: 7 days till surgery

Well, here we are. One week to go before the big day, and I am proud to announce that we are within 80% of our goal!! I have no doubt that we will make it in time, and may even have enough to pay for Bean's post-op sedatives and pain medications (of which there will be many). I couldn't be more surprised and happy about how this has turned out. When it started, I thought, "well, if I can raise a couple hundred dollars, at least that will help us pay something," but you all have totally blown my mind! Thank you, you are all the best!

Today's photo:

Why?! Why have you been waking my up EVERYDAY to take my picture? What can be the meaning of this? I hope you know this makes my knee hurt. Also, I will be barking tonight from 1 AM until 3 AM. Enjoy.