March 24, 2020

My mom is a nurse and gave me some great advice in regards to keeping tracking of Akeela’s medication. She was on 4 different medications after her surgery and most of them were taken at different times throughout the day. It’s an incredibly chaotic, emotional, and stressful time, so it’s easy to forget when you last administered them. My mom recommended that I keep a drug journal, so that I could see when her last dosage was and when I would need to give her the next one. On a note card I wrote down what was being given, the time that it should be given, when I actually gave it, and the date. The pain medication was supposed to be given every 8-12 hours, but in the beginning she would sporadically yelp out in pain, so I would give it to her a couple hours early (hence the when it should be given vs when it was given).

When Akeela came out of surgery, her wound was covered with a bandage. The vet said that I could leave it on as long as we wanted and that it would peel off naturally. After about 3 days we opted to remove it, so that we could keep an eye on the incision. We wanted to make sure that it was healing properly and did not have any signs of infection. We did not want to leave the incision exposed, so we cut up one of my moms shirts and sewed it around the belly for a more customized fit. If you do this, just be careful that you don’t sew it too tight! We ended up leaving it a little too baggy in the back end, which caused her back foot to get stuck one night. I had been sleeping next to her bed on the floor, so fortunately I was able to catch it and help her out before she got too tangled. I ended up using a hair tie and bunched up the extra fabric at the back so it didn’t hang down as much.

For the first two days the vet instructed that I ice Akeela’s incision to help reduce the swelling. I eat a lot of smoothies, so I used frozen bags of blackberries and covered them with a towel. The second two days we were told to use a warm compress on the incision, to help with the healing process. I purchased one of those red rubber water bottles from Walgreens for about $16. Akeela runs warm anyways, so the hot water bottle was not as favored as the ice packs (lots of squirming).