Seppel had his surgery yesterday 6/19.
I applied a fentanyl patch [slow release pain meds] the night of 6/18. By the morning of 6/19 he was a little on the slow side and was feeling pretty good. We anesthetized him for surgery around 12pm - we also did an epidural for pain as well. My boss is pretty awesome and allowed me to scrub in and help in surgery. The new groomer at our clinic is a photographer and stuck around to take some awesome surgery pictures. [Check her out at Lilly Mae Photography on facebook!]
The surgery took about two hours. Everything went really smoothly.
There were two "parts" that were hard for me. First was when we anesthetized him. For a brief moment I wanted to cry because he was asleep, but you know, also kind of looks dead, and it just made me feel really sad. I was able to compose myself, but it was a fleeting moment of emotion. I don't typically get this way, but since I have had bad experiences with anesthesia before, it causes a lot of anxiety. The second part that was a little scary was when we actually cut the head off of the femur. He used an electric saw and I had to hold to knee rotated upward so I could feel the vibration throughout his leg. That was a little worrying and a bit gross - but I survived.
After surgery we put him on a CRI [constant rate infusion of morphine and ketamine in IV fluids]. I was also lucky in that our relief vet who happened to be working does acupuncture. She did some post surgery acupuncture on him for pain control, and also hooked him up to some electrodes. It was really neat and I think it helped with the pain also.
Last night was was really hard for Sepp. He was on so many drugs that he could hardly walk and he cried nearly all night long. As I'm coming to find out he's just very sensitive to the medication and it made him very loopy and out of it. He could hardly make it outside to potty, and cried most of the night.
This morning around 5am I took him off of the CRI, which helped to calm him down. I don't think he was in pain all night, I just think he was very out of it and seeing pink elephants and scary monsters. About an hour after I took him off of the fluids he was already acting more normal and started to walk a lot better. He made it outside several times today to go potty and was able to walk by himself. Mid afternoon we removed his pain patch because it was making him vomit. It's been a few hours now and he's already looking better and more like himself. He's still pretty sleepy and out of it, but he's doing much, much better.
Right now I'm staying somewhere without my own computer... but I have a couple of pictures to share. When I get to my own computer I'll upload the pics I took on my camera.
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| Crappy phone pic - Sepp's pre-surgery x-ray. |
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| Again, crapy cell pic. Sepp's post FHO rad. How an FHO should look! |
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| Sepp's incision. |
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| Sad, sleepy, Sepp. |
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