…Katy is now a Tripawd. 🙂
Surgery was this afternoon, Doc made the first incision about 1:30 pm. It went pretty quick, only about 2 hours or so. Katy did just great, smooth sailing all the way through, no crashes or anything like that. It was just a bit jarring at first to see that shoulder blade come out-I mean, we study skeletons and all the bones in anatomy class, but c’mon, those are nice and white and clean! A scapula in vivo is a whole nother kettle of fish. And the whole procedure was VERY bloody, so I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with weak tummies. Me, I took pictures. 🙂 I won’t post them though, out of respect for those weak-tummied folk; I need to figure out how to set up a photo album around here somewhere.
Afterward I got to sit with Katy in her kennel in recovery; within minutes she was standing up and walking around. Not very steady, mind you, with all the drugs she had on board, but dang I was impressed. She gave me kisses, always a good sign. 🙂 She’s got a train track of sutures running down what used to be her shoulder, don’t know if it will scar or not. The surgeon did a pretty decent job cosmetically, left a good margin so it would stitch together well and not tear, so I think it’ll look fine. As long as she does well overnight, I get to pick her up tomorrow morning. I’m sure my professors are getting so damn irritated with me for missing class/being late, but it’s just this week has been so crazy and my schedule is more flexible than my husband’s, not to mention I’m the crazy vet tech student who craves any animal-related education she can get (which my professors really should respect). I think my schedule’s clear from here till Christmas now, so they can stop bitching. I do feel bad, but that’s just the way things have been for the past few days. Can’t help it.
I do have a souvenir for my professor though. Doc cut into Katy’s leg after he took it off and gave me a lil piece of the lipoma, stuck it in a formalin jar. Yummy. He’s sending out her entire lower leg, from elbow down, for histopathology; there’s got to be neoplastic tissue in there somewhere and I refuse to believe they’ll miss it with a sample that big. What’s funny is, they didn’t have a biopsy container big enough for the leg, so last I saw they had put it in one of those Ziploc tupperware containers. 🙂 Hey, whatever works. Results should be back a week from tomorrow, give or take. Doc even said when he cut into it that the fat and soft tissue did not look normal at all, so we’ll see what the lab finds.
My poor brave Katydid, I’m so proud of her.
