Ripp’s Story, part 7—Recovering From Surgery

Lookin’ good Ripp!

Ripp is nine days post-surgery, off his pain meds except for Rimadyl, and feeling really good!  He’ll chase a ball if I throw it for him, but he needs to stay quiet for a full two weeks after surgery so we can’t do too much of that.  The white ointment in his ears is gradually fading away and his hair is starting to grow back (OK, you DO have to look closely to see this, but it’s progress!), so he doesn’t look quite so funny anymore.  Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. ;-)

Lots of hair there!

This week we received results from the antibiotic sensitivity testing that the NCSU vet school microbiology lab was doing.  Right after Ripp’s surgery, the team sent tissue samples to this lab to test, so that we could be sure Ripp received an antibiotic that would be effective against whatever trace amount of infection might have remained in his body.  After all, we want this to get rid of his infection for good!  Knowing that it would take a few days to get those test results, the care team discharged him with a “placeholder” antibiotic for him to take in the meantime.  

Well, the test results go a LONG way toward explaining why his ear infection had been so hard to clear up all along.  They cultured separately for three of the most common types of bacteria found in ear infections, and it turned out that at least one of those bacteria was resistant to each of the common antibiotics they tested against!   So, although we could have knocked one or two of them out with whatever antibiotic that was tried, the other one would have kept growing.  Not to worry, though, veterinary science has other tricks up its sleeve.  Although the COMMON antibiotics wouldn’t work, a less common one would.  The shock for poor old Foster Mom, though, was that THIS antibiotic would need to be injected twice a day!  For two weeks!   Well OK, if that’s what’s needed, that is what we’ll do…

After picking up the drug and needed supplies from the vet school pharmacy, I stopped by North Paw Animal Hospital for a quick tutorial on exactly how to do this.  The wonderful staff there was happy to oblige, and gave me some great tips on managing this on my own.  YES, I’ve seen dogs get shots lots of times, but I’ve never paid attention to the details especially closely, nor did I ever think I’d be doing it myself!  Well, fostering for GSRA is always an adventure… so here goes.

A bit more complicated than pills:  two different sizes of syringe, needles, sterile saline, the powdered antibiotic, and a sharps container for the used needles.

 

That’s a big shot!  Ripp takes it like 

the brave German shepherd he is.

The antibiotic comes as a powder, so the first step is to reconstitute it in sterile saline.  Then, I draw out the correct dose into the syringe.  Ripp needs 16 mL each time, which is about the size of a tablespoon.  That doesn’t sound like much, but it sure looks like a lot when it’s in the syringe!  Then it gets injected just under the skin between his shoulder blades.  Ripp is SO good for this.  It surely can’t feel good, but he holds still and barely flinches when the needle goes in.  This makes it a LOT easier to make sure all the drug gets where it’s needed.  Of course, he gets lots of loving afterwards, and we congratulate each other for being so brave. ;-)  

When can we play ball again?  I’ve got two sizes 

and will chase whichever one you’ll throw!

Although it’s early days yet, I’ve been watching for any change in his personality now that the chronic pain he’s been living with for so long has been eliminated.  I can’t say I’ve seen any big changes, but he does seem more inclined to initiate an interaction or seek out affection than he did before.  This doesn’t really surprise me.   Sweet as he was before, that pain has to have been a barrier coloring his entire experience with the world for a very long time.  Now that it’s gone, I think we’ll see more of his full personality every day, as his recovery continues.