Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sisu .. under the knife!

It all started 2 months ago - we believed Sisu, our chocolate lab, was stung by a bee. Right below her eye was swollen, almost like a golf ball! After a couple of days it was not improving so we brought her to the vet where they subscribed antibiotics. Over the next few weeks it showed great improvement but her inner eye lid (dogs have 2 sets - can you believe that?!) was still red and draining. Off the the vet again where they attempted another round of meds that ended with the same results. So now we are referred to a Vet specializing in Ophthalmology! Sad part was we could not get an appt for 2 wks. In the meantime, boy it was hard to look at Sisu... she looked so pathetic :(
The big day arrives 12/29 ... Scott brings Sisu to the doctor and the story goes like this:
She had a healing puncher wound inside of her mouth, making the case she may have been chewing
on wood and had a piece enter into her face. Thus causing the infection near/under her eye. Doc said she is fortunate, many times she sees the infection come from behind the eye! Surgery is suggested to remove whatever they can/find near the swollen area. It was a bit of hard swallow to elect this $800-$1k surgery, but there was no other option .. in our book. Scott leaves Sisu and at the end of the day I get a call from the Doc with results ..
She found a lot of "materials", but no sticks per se. She went in through the mouth and also made an incision just under the eye to scrap out all the 'material'. This will be sent off to the lab to be analyzed to make sure the medications are appropriate to kill whatever infection she has.

Sisu did well.. but she had to spend the night for observation. Tuesday at noon we headed to pick her up... and pathetic look is an understatement! The surgery really irritated her, which is normal .. so she is quite swollen - even more so than before! Doc seemed to be confident she got everything out, so we can only pray this is the end of it.
Now she is on pain killers, anti-flam and anitbiotics. And of course there is the E-Collar to keep her from pawing at her face... which she so desperately wants to do!

Here is Caroline giving her some love when she got home! As you can see they had to shave part of her face. This angle is actually her best - the purple area under her eye is very very swollen - near golf ball size. Her inner eye lid is actually covering her eye from the irritation of the surgery. But.. he eye is just fine. Hopefully she will not have too much scarring!

Prime example why she needs the E-collar.. she could do some major damage to the stitches, and we sure don't want to have re-constructive surgery too! She will have to wear this for approximately 1-1/2wks. You can also see the plate of (play) food Caroline made for Sisu :)


We will have a follow up visit late next week, or whenever the results are in. Sisu is lethargic when she first gets her pain medicine, but her spirit is far from broke! If we let her.. she would chase 100 balls just like any other day!

4 comments:

Mel said...

becky sue I hope your sweet dog gets better quickly, poor thing.

Danielle said...

Poor baby Sisu!!!! Give her extra love from all of us!!!

Rebecca said...

How's she doing now??

Becky Sue said...

She is doing much better, at least the swelling has gone down. But, we wont know if the surgery was a success until we get the lab results back!