On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
On Feb 3, Duke went to Banfield for his dental check up and we were told he had 6 very bad teeth. Very bad. To the point the vet recommended immediate extractions. This definitely explained his unusual food aversions a while ago, we thought he was just being picky with his food.
A little backstory for Duke. He had a back injury in November 2019 and was on bed rest for a little over a month. Due to precautions for his back, we didn't feel comfortable to bring him back to the dog park anytime soon. His physical activity used to be dog park + neighborhood walks, but it became just neighborhood walks. Then the pandemic happened and we avoided going outside period. Duke's usual preventative care appointments also got delayed. Then in September 2020, we took Duke to the vet for a concern over something else but found out his bloodworks showed abnormal activities in his livers. So we were told to have him avoid anesthesia of any kind until this got cleared (this included dental checkups). He went back in October for another blood test, it came back normal. But just a few weeks later, he fell off from the bed and hurt his back again. So Duke was on recovery for his back again (horrible experience, glad he got better much quicker than the first time, still I was so scared for him). Then, we brought him back to the vet office to check on some bumps found on his ears. We were worried about those being signs of some skin infection, but that wasn't the case. Thank goodness they cleared away without medication overtime last month. Then, we finally felt it was safe to make that dental appointment (and wellness check up on the same day) and were praying for the best outcome. I was so sad for Duke to have to lose 6 teeth so suddenly and felt like a bad caregiver for Duke.
Duke got dropped off at 8am. The vet called before noon and told us the bad news. She also said Duke was "a very hard patient to work with anesthesia" because he kept showing signs of waking up. At one point the vet said "he just opened his eyes." It turned out every time she walked near him, he'd open his eyes so...to me that meant he was aware of his surroundings. Also, at one point Duke yanked away the IV attached to him. I was very worried for Duke about that. I was worried he could feel pain while the extractions were happening. I was worried Duke was scared. The vet told us she would do her best to finish all extractions in one setting. However, she also warned us that if Duke continued to show signs of waking up then she'd have to stop and we'd have to reschedule to finish the extractions at another time. I prayed and prayed that day for Duke to have all bad teeth extracted at once and not have to go through this again. Finally, the vet called again around 3pm and said the extractions went well, all was done, and we could pick up Duke in about half an hour. W blocked an hour from work and I dropped off work and we went to Banfield right away. We first bought a bunch of canned soft food (12 days worth of soft food). Loaded them to the car, then back to Banfield and picked up poor Duke. He was so happy to see us. Immediately I noticed he couldn't open his mouth like how he normally did, which was normal because he just got extractions.
The vet technician told us the same thing the vet did over the phone. We were instructed to administer antibiotics to him once a day for 4 days. The precautions were pretty similar to the ones we had when we got our wisdom teeth taken out. But I felt so much worse for Duke because he got 6 out at once!! Soft food diet for 10 days. Little amount of food spread throughout the day rather than 1 or 2 big meals to prevent puking. He got stiches and they should dissolve on their own overtime so no need to go back to take them out later. We were warned about the possibility of him being disoriented due to the anesthesia that was still in his system. So we carried him up and down the stairs that day. Additionally, we were instructed to give his dewormer and heartworm prevention tablets a few days afterwards (normally he'd have his heartworm tablet on the 6th of every month, he had the extractions on the 3rd).
Poor Duke seemed disoriented when we first got home.
Duke拔了6顆牙, 可憐的狗狗 我們準備了12天份的罐頭食物給他.
Restocked Duke's pantry. Well...apparently Duke only likes the "shredded chicken" one so we had to return and exchange 2 days later.
For the first five days or so, we spoon-fed him because he seemed very uncomfortable to eat on his own and I was guessing it could be because he got stitches all in his upper mouth so it was harder for him to eat like how he used to. He preferred us to bring the spoon of food to him, then he'd lick it off from the spoon. Sometimes I just held his food in my hand and he licked from my hand. For a while I was worried about him not eating enough food because he was only willing to eat 1-2 pouches per day (he should have 4 per day). By day 10, around his dinner time, we gave him his usual dry food to test if he could eat some of his normal food. He ate them all! So we switched his food back to his usual dry food on day 11 and he started eating on his own without our help then.
We have a wellness plan for Duke (same for Beibei and Lulu). He's had it since the month we adopted him. It's basically pet insurance. We paid $607.97 when we picked him up. That included his extractions, meds used during the procedure and for take home, and his routine wellness exam (complimentary as part of the wellness plan). Accordingly, having the wellness plan saved us $743.72 that day. We think it's worth it to have pet insurance. I know not everyone feels comfortable or is willing to pay extra for something they might not use, but having insurance saves not just the bills in the long run but also the wellness of the furry baby as a result of routine care and coverage. 寵物保險真的很重要. 除了長期下來省醫療費 主要是保護毛小孩的健康!
The dental cleaning and aftercare from Banfield was informative. We're so glad his recovery is going well.
When he was still taking the antibiotics, we resorted to the pill pockets to get those down. Duke loves peanut butter and these pockets did the trick.
We just gave him his heartworm tablet (it's chewable) this morning. Thank goodness he always enjoyed taking the tablet for some reason (I wonder if it's got a doggo-equivalent candy-like flavor). Tomorrow we'll give him his dewormer (through mouth injection).
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| Feb 7, Duke finally began to look more like himself! He'd run up the stairs to wait for me before I even got ready to head upstairs. |
Picture above was taken on Feb 12, we began our usual neighborhood walks again. Duke's eating better and is playful with Lulu and us. So it looks like he's recovering well. As of today (Feb 16), I caught him wanting to chew on his antler toy. I stopped him out of precautions, but I'll probably let him chew it next week if all continue to look good.
💗 CM
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