1 Week Post-Op!

We survived the first week! The enthusiasm I’m feeling is over the top and vaguely ridiculous.

To give you guys a good idea of how awesome and simultaneously terrifying this week has been, I have pictures and a story:

This bruising only appeared after Rascal slept on his incision/stump for the first time on his Farabloc blanket. Until that time he had remained on his good side, and hadn’t had any bruising.

But as you can see with the second photo, as fast as it appeared it was gone. Back to his pink skin with hardly any sign it’d ever been there at all. And yes, he is still sleeping incision side down on the Farabloc, the bruising just hasn’t reappeared. He may be 13 years old, but this dog is healing like a champion. I’m so excited about the progress we’ve made together, and the funny antics that have punctuated his experience so far. He proves to me over and over what an amazing animal he is. It makes me so grateful that he’s spending his life with me and that we’re doing this thing together. He’s not bitter, he isn’t pouting; he’s just trying to convince me he totally can jump off the couch without assistance even though he knows the one time he tried he face-planted into his bed. Thank goodness for strategically placed soft things!

To say that there haven’t been any scary moments or near-disasters would be a falsification on my part. As part of this wonderful community I feel I have to share the moments that feel like failures as well because we got through them, even if they could’ve gone horribly wrong. Some of this has been pure luck, and I am not the perfect human that watches him every second of every day.

One such moment was when the baby gate was down so that my pops could come and retrieve his lunch and bring it back downstairs with him. We were all preparing to eat and moving about, and not one of us noticed Rascal hobbling after pops knowing that he’s the sucker most likely to share some food. We only realized when pops called up, “Rascal is somehow down here and begging!”

To put it simply, Rascal climbed down our thirteen wooden stairs with no supervision, and it could’ve been such a disaster. My appetite gone, I rushed down to check him over and direct my angry panic at my poor pops who wasn’t any more aware of it than I was.

How could he not close the baby gate behind him! Never mind the food that occupied his hands, Rascal’s safety was momentarily at risk! I don’t care that he’s fine I’m too busy freaking out at the possibilities of what could’ve happened!

It was scary, it could have gone so terribly and Rascal could have been seriously injured. Our stairs are steep and have no runners to help him grip. I can only chalk it up to Rascal having so many years of practice going up and down those damned steps that kept him okay when no one was looking. I’ve been so paranoid about the many stairs in and around my hilltop house since, that the gates are always up and the family members are having to use the outdoor stairs to go between floors because that cannot happen again.

So yes, Rascal is doing well and healing with aplomb. But that also means he doesn’t really seem to understand his limits, and he’s willing to put himself in some questionable situations when I so much as focus on a meal.

However, today is not about how close Rascal came to injury. Today is about the fact that he didn’t hurt himself, and he’s had an entire week to try. Time to celebrate!

Wishing the Tripawds Nation all the reasons to celebrate with us,

Rascal and Co.