The following afternoon, my friend and I headed back to the vet at the appointed time with one very hungry Swissy. We walked in to the office, where the vet was waiting for us. He tells us to go through to the exam room as he put the "Cerrado" or closed sign in the window and locked the front door.
We took Riley back to the exam room. It appeared much as it did the day before; the toolbox was on the table behind him, stethoscope was on a hook. Two new items had appeared: a black box with several attachments and wires and a bathroom scale as well as various surgical instruments.
He weighed himself on the bathroom scale and then picked Riley up and stepped on the scale with her to figure out how much she weighed. Very different from the pet friendly walk on scale that I was used to in Baltimore. There I would just get the dog to walk on it and stand still for a moment and the digital read out would give us her weight. A little arithmetic and he had her weight and the amount of anesthetic to inject with the syringe he filled. We put her on the table and he asked me to hold her head while he injected her. Wait a second, where were the OR assistants? It looked like my friend and I were it.
I held Riley's head while he injected her. She squealed a bit as he depressed the plunger. He said it would hurt. Riley stood for a few moments and nuzzled me. A glazed look came into her eyes. Then she was down on the table and out.
The vet set to work. As we watched and much to my horror as it was my little pup on the table, he removed the nail and the quick from her toe. And then the blood started coming out. I knew a dog's nails can bleed a lot when the quick is cut, but there was a LOT of blood here. He'd cut it all the way back.
He then grabbed a pen-like instrument that was attached with wires to the little black box and touched it to the cut area. The smell of burning flesh permeated the room. A cauterizing tool...of course!
Once he stopped cauterizing, there was still a bit of blood coming out of the toe and on to the cotton he'd put under the foot. That's when I had to sit down with my head between my knees. Thank goodness there was a chair right behind me as I thought I would faint. I watched the rest of the procedure from my seated position.
He opened the toolbox and from the depths within pulled out wads of cotton batting, some stretchy cotton mesh, and a roll of DUCT TAPE....yes, DUCT TAPE. One went some serious paste to keep the wound from bleeding out, then the cotton batting and then around all this he put the stretchy cotton mesh which compressed the cotton batting. And then the DUCT TAPE. He wound the silver DUCT TAPE around the bandages several layers deep. And that was that. Surgery over. With Riley still under the anesthetic, he told me what to expect once we got her home. She'd wake up in about an hour. What's that? We don't wait here?
He carried Riley to our car, which fortunately was a station wagon type so it was easy to put her in the back. We went back inside to settle the bill...all of $40. And he told me to call him if there were any problems (he does make house calls). He'd see us in a week. And then I thought, I'm happy that Riley is a small Swissy at 70 pounds because I don't think that I would have been able to carry her if she'd been any bigger!
Ad by Amazon
Riley recovered well after the surgery. She was happy once the DUCT TAPE bandage job was removed . Her nail has grown in just fine. What an experience!
1 comment:
So glad you finally finished this story and that your baby is OK.
Post a Comment