Nikki the Rottweiler

We’ve had a couple of days of snow here, so the back yard is about 4” deep in the stuff right now. It is sunny today, so it’s going to melt off soon.. Nikki absolutely loves the snow! She always has, and we’ve got many pictures of her playing in the snow at various points in her life..

Now that she’s a Tripawd, she’s got a bit of healing to do before she can maneuver enough in it to play…

Yesterday Nikki spent the day with Dr. Pyne and the folks at Banfield. I had to drop her off in the early morning, so she got to go for a ride. It was pretty funny actually, because it was snowing and the roads were icy, but Nikki still wanted a bit of wind on her so I had to crack the window a bit. She was so happy that she was practically howling as we drove.. Kind of hard to concentrate on driving on ice with a howling dog, but I suppose it was worth it.

When we arrived at Banfield, Nikki didn’t let me get the ramp set up, she just flew out of the back of the Tahoe. Good think she was wearing her harness, as I was able to catch her by the handle and let her down easy.. I think she so desperately wants to be normal again.

She didn’t like being cooped up at Banfield, and let everyone know by somehow working her harness around and chewing off a buckle. She just didn’t want to be in the small kennel and wearing that harness…

The seroma is definitely slowing down. Dr. Pyne is pretty pleased with the progress there, so I think only a few more visits for this and we’ll be done with it.

I’m on my way to Boston now, so I’m going to be away for a few days. Nikki has already seen “the bad thing” (my suitcase) and knows I’m leaving, so she’s not very happy right now. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but it is hard to leave her at this point. (Work beckons, unfortunately)

As you can see, Sasha and Nikki are doing fine together. That was one of the big concerns we had, considering that Sasha is a bull in a china shop most days, and only wants to play. (I swear that dog is wound up from the moment she wakes until the moment she sleeps)

It’s Sunday morning, and we haven’t been to Banfield since Thursday, so that’s certainly good news. Nikki’s seroma seems to have slowed down quite a bit since the last drain, so we think that’s starting to get back to normal. I have to drop her off at Banfield to spend the day with Dr. Pyne tomorrow morning, and we’ll get a full report after that.

All in all Nikki is back to being pretty steady on her feet and doing a lot of the stuff that she’s used to doing.

Yesterday I opened a new baby gate (we decided that we’re going to block off the stairs so Nikki doesn’t try to go up them) and I saw Nikki eyeing the box, so I tossed it over to where she was laying and she just scooted over to it and started tearing it up.. Not quite as vigorous as she usually is, but at least she felt the need to do it.

Last night as I sat on the couch, I saw Nikki eyeing the corner and helped her get up. She then immediately decided she was going to get in my lap. She didn’t stay too long (I can’t imagine it was all that comfortable for her), but again, she is starting to get more and more of her normal behaviors back.

I installed a new “doggie door” last week (and finished it all up yesterday) that is an extra-large size (we had a large size before, which meant that the dogs had to maneuver themselves just right to go through it) so Nikki can get in/out to the deck on her own if she wants. She seems to want to be as normal as possible, so we’re trying to do what we can to help her out.

This morning Nikki is following me around as usual, and has decided to plop down next to me here in the office.

Yesterday we thought we’d seen it all when Dr. Pyne removed 685cc of fluid from Nikki’s seroma. We figured that there was no way that her body was going to produce much more… Well, we were wrong. Originally we had an appointment for follow-up on Friday evening, but Nikki was uncomfortable today, so Mary called Banfield and they had us bring her in. Dr. Pyne is off today, so another doctor saw Nikki (Nikki didn’t really like her, not sure why, hopefully it was just the fact that she was sick and tired of being poked by that big needle to drain) and extracted another 460cc’s of drainage from the seroma.

Other than these pesky visits to the Dr. for drainage, Nikki is doing great. Today she ran (yes, RAN.. No evidence whatsoever that she was on 3 legs. Wish I’d have gotten it on video to prove it) on more than one occasion from one part of the house to another to chase some threat (You know, like the UPS truck driving down the street, or the neighbor kid ringing the doorbell because he wants to borrow some vanilla extract)

The biggest problem that we seem to be facing right now, surgery + 17 days, is in trying to keep Nikki relaxed and not so active so that the seroma can heal. This, plus the restlessness, which I am sure is brought on by the discomfort around the fluid in the seroma, is proving to be our biggest challenge. Nikki has really adapted to 3 legs just fine, and aside from the fact that I am still uncomfortable letting her try the stairs on her own, she’s pretty much independently mobile.

I may have to check with the good folks over at the Guinness Book of Records to see if they have a category for “Most fluid drained from a canine seroma”..

Today we had yet another appointment to see Dr. Pyne so that she could check on the seroma that had formed on Nikki’s hip. (Remember yesterday we had a bandage that didn’t last long, so there was no compression overnight). Well, as it turned out, more fluid did develop. Dr. Pyne extracted over 685ccs of fluid from Nikki’s hip. All I can say is HOLY COW! No wonder Nikki was having so much trouble balancing. I’d have trouble too if my hip had that much fluid in it..

You can actually see the difference in the way Nikki moves with the fluid drained. Since we can’t really get a pressure bandage to stick and still be comfortable for Nikki, we’re just going to have to go down the path of making sure that we keep the area drained. Dr. Pyne said that it should clear up soon, but we’ll have to watch it on an almost daily basis. (We go back in on Friday for the next checkup)

One thing I have to say, Nikki has been a trooper throughout this whole experience. She still gets so excited when you pick up the harness because she knows that there’s a good chance that once that harness is attached, she’ll get to go for a ride! Today we also had to bring Buddy in for his checkup and some vaccination boosters. Mary was trying to quietly put Buddy’s harness on out in the front room, and Nikki heard the rattling of the buckle and practically ran out where they were..

The people at Banfield just love Nikki. She knows them all now, and treats them just like she does her family. (Word of warning, if you ever get a chance to meet Nikki and she decides that she likes you, I hope you’re not allergic to dog slobber) Nikki has the entire routine down pat at this point, and doesn’t even miss a beat with any of it.

Sort of a short update today. We’re just trying to keep Nikki as calm and relaxed as possible while at the same time letting her heal.

Well, everyone here has pretty much told us that we should expect a lot of ups and downs during the first few weeks..

Nikki had been doing very well, even after we had to take her to the ER last week for the seroma, but I had noticed on Monday morning that she was “wobbly” (It just looked to me like she didn’t have the balance that she had). We saw Dr. Pyne on Monday who drained the seroma again and put a pressure bandage on. (You can read about that in my last post)

Well, after Nikki had the bandage on for awhile she pretty much decided that she wasn’t going to try and walk at all. She did NOT like that bandage one bit! We saw Dr. Pyne today (We will be seeing her on a daily basis for the next few days) and she took the bandage off. She let us know that the seroma hadn’t really drained any over night, and we might be doing better there than expected. She then put another bandage on Nikki and sent us home. This bandage wasn’t quite as restrictive as the other, so Nikki seemed happier. Honestly though, she still doesn’t seem “right” in terms of the way she’s moving around..

After dropping Nikki and Mary back home, I headed into the office for the afternoon and left them to their own devices. Apparently while I was gone, the bandage just didn’t hold at all, and by the time I got home Mary had called Dr. Pyne, who basically told her to remove the bandage and we’d check how the seroma was doing in our visit tomorrow.

Nikki seems a lot happier without the bandage, but she’s still not quite right when she’s up and moving.. As I watched her this evening, I came up with the theory that her remaining hind leg is just sore, because the more she moved around the better she got. (I can relate to that, I broke my ankle in 3 places a few years back, and have had 3 surgeries on it, and I still can’t walk right for the first few minutes after I get up)

So, we will watch and see how things progress, but for now we’re going to try and let Nikki just relax a bit and not try and push things.

When I’m home and working, she loves to lay behind my chair in the office, and tonight is no exception:

We weren’t supposed to see Dr. Pyne until tomorrow, but she had read the report from the emergency room and decided that she wanted to see Nikki today instead.

Dr. Pyne was concerned with the seroma that had developed, and also concerned that when the emergency clinic drained it they were only able to get 5cc of fluid out. She took Nikki into the back room, and proceeded to drain the seroma as much as she could. Turns out she was able to extract over 300cc of fluid! That’s a LOT of fluid, and more than a pound of extra weight on the wound area. No wonder Nikki had been uncomfortable!

Now that the seroma is drained, Dr. Pyne wants to keep a pressure bandage in place to help the healing. (Apparently the body will continue to produce the fluids as long as there’s a place for them all to go) Unfortunately with Nikki’s anatomy, there was no real way to keep the bandage on, so we worked out a plan that means we need to keep Nikki’s harness on for the next couple of days so that we have some hope of the bandage staying attached.

Here’s Nikki’s new look:

We’ll need to make daily trips to see Dr. Pyne over the next few days for bandage changes until the seroma dries up. Hopefully this won’t take too long..

In other news, I forgot to post a couple of pictures from yesterday showing that Nikki has found out how to get up on the couch and rest in one of her favorite spots:

So, as you can see, we’re progressing on a somewhat “normal” track for these things.. Hopefully the seroma will heal quickly and Nikki can get back to learning to walk without all the extra “baggage”.

Here’s a tip that might help some people as they go through this process with their new TriPawd…

If you read some of the earlier status reports that I’ve put up, you’ll note that I mention that Nikki is restless a lot. For the first couple of days post surgery, the restlessness was attributed to the dysphoria brought on by the high doses of pain medication, and that certainly seems to have been the case, as when we started reducing the pain meds, the restlessness seemed to dissipate. However over the last few days Nikki had become increasingly restless, and you could tell that it was related to the wound itself.. We had applied the anti-itch cream which definitely helped, but it didn’t really remove it altogether.

As yesterday wore on, Nikki seemed to get more and more restless and irritated with her stitch area.. Mary and I discussed it, and remembered something that the Banfield Emergency vet had said (I’m sorry that I don’t remember her name); “Put some triple-antibiotic on the area”. The idea here is to help address the possible infection that could get in because of the drainage of the seroma. Well, Mary went to the store last night and bought some Neosporin with pain relief, and literally the moment that she applied that to the wound, Nikki’s restlessness and irritation with the wound went away. She applied it a couple of times through the night, but it is very obvious that it works..

Today Nikki has been perfectly fine. She’s moving around a bit better than she was yesterday, but more importantly her urge to scoot along the carpet and pick at her wound is gone! She’s very happy, and very peaceful today. (As I write this, she’s laying down at my feet here in the office, after having come in from sunning herself on the back deck)

So, tip of the day, apply Neosporin (or some other triple antibiotic with pain relief) to the stitches area starting around day 5 after surgery. You’ll likely find that it keeps your new tripawd from going nuts as the stitches heal!

Here’s a photo of Nikki sunning herself on the deck:

And I would be remiss if I didn’t share this photo without so much zoom so you can see the rest of the story….

We are now at surgery day + 11, and things seem to be settling into a regular routine. Nikki is very much getting back into her old habits. One of the things she loves to do is take the caps off an empty plastic bottle, she’ll see me finish a coke or something and then expect me to put the cap on and give it to her… I was sitting in the office here last night when she noticed me finish one and she asked for it… Took her a little while longer than normal to get it off, but get it she did…

We’ve had a bit of leakage and such from the seroma, and Nikki seems to be moving a bit slower than she has been, but all in all I’d say we’re making really good progress.

Here’s a short video that I shot of her today:

Nikki does seem to be a bit more restless over the last couple of days. She’ll move around a bit, scoot some on the carpet, and try really hard to lick her stitches. I imagine that is due to the itchy part of the healing. The anti-itch cream helps, but all in all I think everyone will be happy when the stitches all come out and the wound can heal.

Today was a pretty lazy day. I played a lot with Sasha and Buddy so they wouldn’t feel left out, and when I decided to kick back on the couch, Sasha decided that she would join me as you can see here. (Nikki is hard to see to the left as she’s passed out on her blanket)

Tuesday we see Dr. Pyne again and decide whether we get to take the stitches out, and possibly drain the seroma some more. Otherwise, pretty “normal” stuff I guess.

Don’t panic, it’s OK!

Today was one of those truly epic days for Nikki. It started out just fine (by the way, Nikki has been sleeping perfectly soundly the last few nights, and by extension so have I… Makes for a much better outlook for the day if you ask me) with the normal morning routine, then a conference call, then heading into the office, where the only way I get info on Nikki is through the occasional IM from Mary..

Today I received several IM messages that started with, “Guess What Nikki did…”, so you can imagine that she was definitely very active today.. The most impressive feat of all was that she decided to go up the stairs on her own to prove that she could do it. (I’ve not been wanting to let her try UP on her own yet, but I guess she wanted to prove that she could do it). As you might imagine though, that wore her out a bit..

When I got home, Nikki was there to greet me and then she decided to hang out with me for most of the evening. I can’t really explain the bond that Nikki and I have with respect to this, but there’s something very calming about looking down and seeing her laying on the floor beside my chair while I’m working.

I had a bit of work to do tonight, so was concentrating on some stuff when I heard Mary yell. Apparently Nikki had decided to get up and play around a bit with the other dogs and got a little ahead of herself. She slipped on the wood floor (she had to work to find an area not covered by a temporary rug, but of course she found it) and came down hard on her wound. Well, we’re now 9 days post-surgery, so of course there’s a bit of fluid and everything else up there (Seroma I believe is what it’s called) and a fair amount of it decided to make an exit when Nikki hit the ground.. Mary of course did what I can only describe as a “Freak Out”, so the only option was to get Nikki loaded up and head to the emergency room. Nikki was a bit puzzled by the frantic actions, but she was happy that she got to go for a ride…

Once the vet saw Nikki, she described the natural healing process and the fact that seromas will develop, and that it was really nothing to worry about. She did take the time to drain it a bit more, but overall she said to let it drain on it’s own, and don’t worry… (Kind of hard to do when you see a puddle of blood and other fluids on your floor under your babydog after a fall…)

So, now we’re back home, and Nikki is back in her position behind my chair, and all is well with the world……

Just got off the phone with Dr. Pyne. The pathology report on Nikki’s leg came back today, and they have identified the tumor as a mid-grade Osteoblastic Osteosarcoma. Because the tumor is mid-grade, and because we caught it very early, we’re all very hopeful that the worst is behind us.

Dr. Pyne is going to send the results over to Dr. Friedly so he can determine if he wants to modify anything on the treatment plan. I suspect that this won’t change anything though.

From our perspective, this is good news! It’s not a giant-cell OSA, nor is it as aggressive as we were all thinking…

WOO!