Save Our Sanity!

We are 38 days post-op today and those not-so-crazy meds Reyna’s been taking the last few weeks aren’t so effective anymore. Reyna’s back to her old self, including the spinning. She’s still taking the meds, because I’m hoping they’re providing at least some calming influence. I shudder to think how she’d be if she wasn’t taking anything at all. Reyna’s also very unhappy with the current restrictions. She tried to eat Duncan’s head the other day, and not in a playful manner. Duncan felt the need to actively defend himself. It was the closest those two have ever come to an actual fight.

Reyna’s limp is almost completely gone – the only time I see it is when she first gets up after a prolonged rest period (although there aren’t many that would qualify as “prolonged” anymore). We’re up to a mile during each of our morning and evening walks. Reyna was starting to lag behind on our walks, and I figured she’d just gotten really bored with making laps in our cul-de-sac, so I finally decided to start walking across the road into the main neighborhood. The first time we did that, she immediately perked up. If the weather were cooler, I’d have added a mid-day walk just to help keep her relaxed, but its too hot for woman or beast to be walking on the road in the middle of the day. The two walks help, but there are a whole lot of hours in between them for her to go nutty. Over the weekend, I decided to try relaxing the restrictions just a bit – a happy medium between what the surgeon recommended and what is necessary to keep Reyna calm. When we went out in the yard, I let her off the leash – still no running (ha!), jumping, wrestling, or chasing Duncan’s ball. She didn’t try to really run very often, but she did do quite a bit of quick trotting (and spinning). I kept an eye out for any sign of a limp to indicate that she’d overdone it. For the most part, the experiment went pretty well, although she did have a couple of small incidents where she very obviously strained the leg a bit. Nothing serious, but not something I want her doing. I have no idea how things are going to go starting tomorrow, since I have to go back to the office and she’ll be crated all day. The sitter and I will swap out giving her a break during lunch, but I’m still pretty sure our evenings are going to be miserable.

Overall, Reyna is doing extremely well. The difference in just a few short weeks is amazing. As a reminder, here she was the day she came home, the day after the surgery (the silly expression is because she sneezed).


These pictures I took two days ago. The second shot isn't a great pose, but I included it to show the change in her incision/scar. The fur has grown over it enough so all that is visible is an odd ridge.