Surgery Update: Day 15

Today we saw yet another vet! Dr. G recently joined Dr. C and Dr. D at their practice. (This is starting to sound like alphabet soup...) She removed Sadie's bandage. There was still a "hole" where the seroma had been on Monday, but when she pressed around it, nothing came out! Yeah! I was very pleased. She said it had calcified (I think?) and there was no more seroma. Unfortunately, she said that the hole would not close up, but just needed to scar over. She recommended that we remove the staples, since some of them were starting to get embedded in the skin. Sadie did great for the staple removal. Dr. G commented on how calm and good Sadie was. She really has been a trouper throughout this ordeal.

Once the staples were removed, Sadie turned her head sharply to try and lick the spot. I said "No, Sadie!" and then she kind of went to sit down. When her knee bent, a stream of goop shot out all over the upper part of my pants. "There it is," I said, "the seroma's still there." But Dr. G said that it was too deep to be a seroma. "Seromas" she said, "are just under the skin and this is deeper." I mentioned that Dr. D had wanted to flush it out with iodine today and Friday, but she was very opposed to that. She said it's way too deep and she didn't know where it went. She said, "what if I put iodine in there and it doesn't come out? No, I don't feel comfortable with that at all."

She recommended that I take Sadie back to Dr. V and get the next steps from him. The culture from Monday still hadn't come back, but she didn't think that it looked infected. She took the soiled bandage back to Dr. C to consult and he concurred that it didn't smell bad (he was doing surgery). He concurred that I should take Sadie to Dr. V and get his opinion on rehab, etc.

We bandaged her knee just around "the hole" and they sent me home with supplies to re-bandage it on my own. I did this tonight (it just doesn't stay in place when not wrapped around her waist) and was sickened to see that "the hole" was twice as big as in the morning. :-(

I'm curious to hear what Dr. V thinks about it tomorrow. Sadie is still not eating much and really isn't putting any weight on the bad leg, which worries me. She'll be out of pain meds tomorrow, too, so we'll see what Dr. V recommends. Putting the small pills in marshmallows seems to work well and Michelle's peanut butter trick helps with the bigger ones.

I don't know what to think anymore. We're just persevering and praying hard for her.