Whelp, the day almost ended well enough.

Almost…and then one of our old villains showed up.

See, Ollie doesn’t tolerate the cone of shame particularly well. He tries to paw it off (or at least he did before – I guess we haven’t tried it since, but his now gone paw wasn’t particularly working then so it must be the same thing) and I’m always terrified he’s going to strangle himself. And being that it’s often used when I’m sleeping…well, my anxiety tends to ramp hard. Anyway, that was an issue during his biopsy healing because he was frantic about trying to get to his injury and just about nothing I did could stop him from getting to it unless it was wrapped and inside a sleeve or some kind of other protector – like double layers to stop his constant lick attacks.

Now, we have this massive stitch farm and today, much to my chagrin, they felt like it was okay to unwrap it. And tonight, Ollie saddled himself right on his side and promptly licked right through the tee-shirt he was wearing and got himself a nice little stream of – well, it’s not blood exactly so much as seepage I didn’t want to see caused by him licking it. So now he’s wearing two shirts and a soft cone (which he’s only tolerating because of his night drugs).

I guess I’ll take him back in tomorrow and plead with them to put the bandages back on. Because maybe this is easier or simpler when the dog is willing to tolerate anything that will stop him but my boy won’t. I need some help on this front otherwise he’s never going to heal this wound and I’m kind of terrified.

I just want him to be okay and I can’t seem to get in front of this.

Anyway, other stuff from the day:

-We changed out his Tramadol for Amantadine and I learned what a compounding pharmacy is.

-He started the day very slow but as we worked into it, found himself more. He was willing to get up several times and wander through the room and showed some of his old self. LOL, considering all of the above, maybe I don’t want his old self while I’m trying to get this infernal wound healed.

-More KONG antics – tho I really wish there was a more TriPawd accessible one.

-No poop today but I’d bet that’s the brief return to the Tramadol.

-He started using the raised water bowl; so did his brothers. Dorks.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that when he’s lying on his front side instead of one of the two sides, he tends to not be able to doze off unless there’s a pillow under his head (though as shown below, he seems to prefer the pillow regardless, but a necessity forward). I wonder if that’s because he was so used to using his paws as a pillow or what else, but once I put it there, he’s out.

Anyway, I’m fairly certain the vet is sick to death of me and thinks I’m incompetent being I can’t seem to keep him off his sutures. Hopefully, they don’t fight me on keeping it bandaged up.

This part of the adventure, I could really do without.