Miss Emmy's Bad Day

It's 2.21 in the morning, and I'm sitting up with the dog. Miss Emmy the French Bulldog's surgery today was quite the ordeal. We knew her spay was going to be complicated by her pyometra-- but that turned out to be the simple part. She's got two small mammary masses that the vet planned on removing during the spay (and also to fix an umbilical hernia)-- but that didn't go as expected. When Dr Zanoty went to excise the left mass, it revealed itself as a huge infiltrating tumour. It was metatastized throughout the mammary ducts on that side. The vet had to remove a large amount of tissue to get all the tumour on that side-- leaving Emmy with an approximately 3-4" surgical defect to close. The poor dog has such elongated teats and stretched abdominal skin from constant breeding that the vet was able to pull enough skin together to close the hole-- but it ain't pretty. One of her nipples is now on the other side of her abdomen from its original placement by Mother Nature, and she looks like she's had a botched tummy tuck. Not to mention the very large suture line. Two suture lines actually, as her spay incision is separate. Dr Zanoty was unable to remove the second mass because there simply isn't enough skin left to close another abdominal wound.

She gave me a section of the tumour so I can have my regular vet send it off for a histopath. I'm going to take it by his office later today. So I've got a mammary tumour in my refrigerator, LOL.

Poor Emmy is a tough old bird, but she's hurting. The vet gave her a morphine injection for the car ride home, and she sent pain meds home with her as well, but she's very uncomfortable. I made her a bed on the sofa and have literally been sitting with her since I got home around 7.15 pm. She's been so sedated with the pain meds that I've been concerned about her breathing and she was having a hard time maintaining a normal body temperature. I let the sedation wear off enough to encourage her to urinate and at least stand-- which she did about 15 mins ago. She keeps making this dreadful moaning noise-- I know it's probably partially due to the medication, but still it hurts to hear it. This is not a wussy dog-- she has to be really in pain to vocalize.

I did get her antibiotics and a couple of teaspoonfuls of canned food in her a few minutes ago as well.

I'm going to try to get a little sleep before toddling off to the vet in a few hours! I have a friend coming in the morning to help me change her belly wrap (we wrapped her because of the drainage).

Bless her heart-- this old dog has had a truly horrendous life and still she tries so hard. When I was sitting on the sofa with her, she kept woozily wiggling her head off her towels onto my thigh and crying when I would get up. (I had to pee sometime!) I'm glad I took Sunday off from the bookstore because she is definitely going to need the assistance.

Miss Emmy Part Two

So I get to bed around 3.30 this morning, and got up about 6.30 to check on Emmy. She couldn't walk. When she tried, her back end went all cattywampus and she was knuckling over in both hind feet. I got some water and a few spoonfuls of food into her along with her pain meds and antibiotics, and had her at my vet at 8.00 am. He was not pleased with the butcher job Dr Zanoty did on Emmy's abdomen. She is draining a bit through the suture line (which runs from the bottom of her breastbone all the way to her vulva), but since Zanoty didn't put any drains in, there is a lot of pocketed swelling along the line and her left leg is grossly swollen. We figure the leg edema is causing nerve impingement which is causing her neurological deficits. What a fucking mess. He also was not pleased that Zanoty refused to give me an NSAID (she said that it couldn't be used with the Tramadol-- which is bullshit). He put Emmy on rimadyl, more cipro, and increased her tramadol dose. He is not one to directly deride another vet's work, but he actually told me that next time I see Dr Zanoty I should suggest she invest in some continuing education so she can be up to date on the latest treatment modalities.
The thing that really pisses me off about all this is that it was so unnecessary. I had no idea Dr Zanoty was doing this extensive of a surgery. She was supposed to do the spay and a simple lumpectomy of a mass that on palpation was only about 3 cm. I only learned of the drastic surgery that was done when I arrived at the Animal Control facility to pick Emmy up. Dr Zanoty never called to inform me of the size of the underlying mass, she just took it upon herself to try to remove it. And I believe she got in over her head. I've been a veterinary nurse since 1993 and I've never seen such bad suturing. If Zanoty had phoned me to let me know the lumpectomy was going to be more involved than we had believed-- I would have told her to close Emmy up and I would deal with it later. Many of these mammary tumours are hormone fueled and once that uterus was gone the mass would probably have been easier to deal with. I wasn't given that option, and I am LIVID about it. My vet was horrified when I told him I knew nothing about this extensive surgery-- that I found out about it when I picked Emmy up. That is plain bad medicine and unethical.
Anyhow, my friend Jana took me to breakfast after the vet visit for some much needed food and caffeine, then I spent the rest of the day cold packing and massaging Emmy's leg in between naps (hers and mine). She has a bit more mobility this evening and I'll be getting up every couple of hours to cold pack her. I dread going to work Monday and leaving her alone all day. Jana is going to see if her mom can stop over and check on her for me.
On the upside of all this, I'm thrilled that I have found a very good vet (Dr Roger Story) here in this little Southern redneck town.