Rough 1st Night at Home

Presley's first night at home was a little rough. She woke up at around 1AM moaning and very uncomfortable. I pet her until she settled in her bed again, but 15 minutes later she was up walking around the room. I asked her if she had to go potty, but she sat down, which means "no".

This went on until about 2:30AM when I moved her into the living room. I thought maybe a change of scenery would do her good. I was very tired and a little cranky over the situation but I also amazed at how well she was getting around.

While we were in the living room, she was up and down a little until I gave her two Tramadol at 4AM. I think she was hallucinating from the pain patch. Diesel experienced the same thing last year when she was recovering from ACL surgery and had a pain patch.

Presley kept standing up and staring at the chair, or the window, or a spot on the floor. After she took her meds, she finally slept for a couple hours as I slept on the couch. Diesel came in a couple times to check on us but retreated to the bedroom each time.

At 6AM, the girls went potty then ate their breakfast. That's a good sign that Presley is feeling good when she eats all of her breakfast.

(SIDE NOTE: Just before her original surgery date (10/3/07), Presley stopped eating. No food, no treats, no Cheez Whiz, no peanut butter. Nothing. That's when I knew she wasn't feeling well because she has always been a good eater, especially treats. She also developed diarrhea that looked like it had blood in it. I woke up at 1:30AM and just felt like something wasn't right. So I woke up Scott and we took her to emergency in the middle of the night before her surgery to see what was going on. Turns out that the pain meds she was on (Deramaxx) was upsetting her stomach and wreaking havoc on her GI. We took her off the Deramaxx, put her on antibiotics and a couple pills to ease her stomach, including Pepcid AC. The surgeon called me and said he wanted to postpone the surgery for one week until she was feeling better. He was concerned that the bacteria from her GI could infect the surgery site. We picked her up later in the morning and after a couple days, she perked up. Then the surgeon gave her the thumbs up for surgery a week later.)

After the girls ate breakfast, we went back into the bedroom and slept for a few hours. The rough night must have wiped her out because she's been sleeping almost the whole day.

At one point in the afternoon at about 1PM, we went into the backyard and she found her favorite spot in the grass. It took her a couple tries to get comfortable but she seemed to enjoy the sun. Diesel tried to entertain us by playing with her ball and digging in the back, but then she also joined Presley by sitting right next to her.

I've never seen Diesel stick so close to Presley as she has the past 24 hours. Diesel keeps checking on her big sister by sniffing and licking her, and sometimes laying really close to her. Diesel knows somethings up and knows that Presley isn't feeling 100%. Diesel has been very gentle around Presley, except when I gave them some treats when we came back into the house after sitting outside. Diesel almost knocked her big sister over twice trying to get to the living room for treats time.

Presley is sitting on her bed in the living room just staring at me as I type this. She's curled up and it looks like her leg might be tucked under her. Sometimes it's still a bit of a shock to see her. Like last night, at one point she was standing in the doorway and I could only see her silhouette. It was like a punch in the gut to see her leg missing. It's gonna take some getting used to, for all of us.