It has already been 17 days since Romeo’s amputation. He seems to be back to his normal self and has figured out how his body works now. Tonight he managed to carefully position himself on the bed between a dog (not the five pound dog!), Trent and a cat, without crushing any of them. Pretty impressive for a dog who could barely manage that with four legs.
Now that he is this far into his surgery recovery, it’s time to kill/maim/inhibit some cancer. Romeo gets to spend the day at OSU on Wednesday for his first chemo treatment.
Romeo was a pretty good office companion last week and got to join me again today. This afternoon I took advantage of the bright lights in my office to poke at Romeo’s incision.
When his staples were removed last week, our vet told me to keep an eye out to make sure none were missed. With over 80 staples used and trying to remove them from a big dog who is standing up and leaning, it is understandable that some could be hiding.
The section that the vet was concerned about is looking good so far – keeping Julio from licking it has been a challenge though. But there was another spot that just wasn’t looking better. I poked around and sure enough, buried in there was a pesky staple.
I haven’t removed that many staples in my life and the times I have tried I haven’t been particularly good at it, but this was a great chance to practice.
This skin had bunched up around the staple and made it difficult to even get the staple remover on it. After some digging, I finally got it. (By the way, Romeo is the world’s most tolerant dog. The entire time, he just laid there and mellowed.)
Unfortunately I didn’t actually have the middle of the staple and only succeeded in freeing one side. More poking, prodding, bending and twisting finally got the rest of it free. (Again, the world’s most tolerant dog.)
Now that spot can heal up with Romeo’s super magical healing powers.
After 17 days, his incision looks great, but if you don’t want to see, you know what not to do.
Here
is
Romeo’s
lovely
incision,
nice
and
big
to
appreciate
its
massiveness…
After I demonstrated my staple removing skill…
I’m sure our vet would have had better staple mojo, but Romeo didn’t object.