...well, you know. It pours.
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Loki, a foster dog, not doing well after his neuter surgery last weekend. The neuter site was very swollen and very bright red, and he was in obvious pain.
So, he was taken to my vet last Saturday morning, where he received painkiller and antibiotic...then the swelling went down, and appeared to be healing fine since then. In fact, it looked like a normal neuter site until yesterday evening, and he seemed to be recovering well, although he seemed pretty tired.
When I finished my work for the day yesterday, I went out to the kennel to bring him dinner and hang out. To my shock he seemed extremely lethargic and depressed. He was lying flat against the kennel door and refused to get up as I entered. As I walked in he started to whine and cry, didn't want to sit down and was in obvious distress. I managed to get him to lay on his back and I took a look at the neuter site.
I had checked it in the morning and it had looked perfectly fine... but that was not the case now. To say I was horrified would be an understatement. The area behind the incision site appeared to be completely burst open, with a huge hole draining with pus and Lord knows what else (I literally got the shakes and felt like fainting after I saw it, and believe me, I have a very strong stomach). Needless to say he was rushed to the emergency vet immediately.
I couldn't believe it when the vet told me what was happening. He explained that it was a freak accident that happens with neuter surgeries sometimes, about a 1-in-1000 chance... could be either from an allergic reaction to the sutures or scrub used, or a blood vessel that wasn't tied off properly during surgery. Either way, the tissue had started to die off around the sutures, formed an infection, and finally burst to the surface and compromised the skin. The area, as I was told, is completely full of necrotic tissue and infection. The only saving grace is that he has been on an antibiotic since last Saturday, so that kept the infection local, and probably prevented it from becoming systemic.
The emergency vet told us he would need to surgery to remove the affected skin, scrape out all the affected tissue, then sew the area back up. The vet assured us that it would be fine to perform the surgery the following morning at our regular vet, and sent us home with a sedative, anti-inflammatory, and instructions to cold-pack the area every 6 hours.
So, this morning, off to the vet we went, running on only two hours of sleep. The good news is, my vet strongly opted against surgery, in the belief that a strong antibiotic and a good cleaning in the vet's office will have the site closed up by the weekend.
Fingers crossed... this has been one heck of a week for vet bills. You'll have this with dogs. They have a propensity for getting into trouble. But still... let's try to keep it to once a year if at all possible, alright, dogs?
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