Saturday, January 16, 2010
Update
We heard from Dr. Geels today for an update on Amos. He is feeling considerably better and is able to toe-touch on the right leg today. Dr. Geels said that they were going to ween him off of the pain medicine over the next two days and we should still be able to pick him up on Monday as planned. I'll let you know what they tell us when they call tomorrow with their update. Until then...
Friday, January 15, 2010
Bummer....
Well, it looks like we won't be going to Las Vegas today after all. After Dr. Geels did his rounds this morning he gave me a call to update me. It turns out Amos is still really sore from the surgery yesterday, which is to be expected, but Dr. Geels feels that with the long car ride ahead that it would be best to keep him a few extra days and send him home on Monday instead of tomorrow. So Bummer. We still have to wait. It is only a few more days, but it is still a bit disappointing. Oh well. So it seems we will head there on Sunday afternoon to pick him up Monday morning.
Dr. Geels is the attending physician for the clinic this weekend, so he said he would give me a call each day and let me know how Amos is doing. So I will keep you posted as to what he says.
Dr. Geels is the attending physician for the clinic this weekend, so he said he would give me a call each day and let me know how Amos is doing. So I will keep you posted as to what he says.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
And We Wait... and Wait... Finally!
Joyce from Best friends emailed me yesterday morning to let me know that Sarah Kubacki, vet tech with Best Friends had picked Amos up for the trip to Vegas so he was on his way.
So today's the day... Amos' first hip surgery is to be performed today at the Las Vegas Veterinary Referral Center in Las Vegas, NV by Dr. Geels. I was told by Holly at LVVRC that someone should be calling me once Amos is out of surgery to inform me on his status and how the surgery went. So all day I waited on pins and needles for a phone call to let me know how it went. and I waited... and I waited.. So, at 4:30 pm with no word, I couldn't take it anymore and called LVVRC to see if maybe they forgot to call or to see if something went wrong. Holly at LVVRC informed me that Amos was fine, but they had a lot of surgeries today and they hadn't taken Amos in to the operating room yet and that he was on the schedule to be the last surgery of the day. While I was on the phone with Holly, a surgery tech at LVVRC called up to the front to let them know they were prepping to bring Amos into the operating room then. Whew! Finally, he is on his way to the operating room and the long surgery is about to start. Holly told me that since the office closes and shuts down their phones at 5pm that I would have to wait until the surgery was over for someone to call me with an update on Amos' status. So again I waited... and waited... and waited some more... I got home from work at 6:45 pm and still had not heard anything. Now I'm starting to get concerned that either I wasn't going to get a call or that the surgery was taking a lot longer than I thought. But yet, I waited some more, hoping to hear something soon. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it until the morning when the office opened to find out anything and that if that was the case it was going to be a L O N G night. Finally at 8:30pm Dr. Geels called me to let me know that Amos made it through the surgery with flying colors and was sleeping the drugs off peacefully in his cage. Whew. Dr. Geels informed me that they had planned to operate on his left hip, but under anesthesia he determined that the right hip was a little worse off so they operated on the right hip today instead. Dr. Geels opted to use a cement less hip joint in lieu of the cemented hip joint as the cemented joints tend to come loose over the coarse of time and cement less joints actually bond to the bone of the femur so they have less slippage over time. He also informed us that now comes the critical time, as the most common post-operative complication in large breed dogs is a femur fracture or break. So we have to be really careful and keep him confined and limit all activity for at least six weeks. That's going to be a bit challenging with such a big dog, but I want the surgery to be as successful as possible and the recovery to go as smooth as possible so he can get back in for the second surgery to his left hip when he is ready.
Dr. Geels said he would follow-up with me in the morning after he does his rounds with all their patients to let me know if Amos will be discharged on Saturday morning as we hope. So, off we went and took Casey to spend the next two nights at Aunt Nancy's and Uncle Jon's house, just in case, so we can leave tomorrow afternoon to head to Vegas to pick him up from LVVRC on Saturday if he is ready to go. Yeah! If there are any problems with discharging him on Saturday we will have to wait and pick him up on Monday morning. So we are hoping everything goes well tomorrow and we will get the green light to pick him up on Saturday. We'll keep you posted...
So today's the day... Amos' first hip surgery is to be performed today at the Las Vegas Veterinary Referral Center in Las Vegas, NV by Dr. Geels. I was told by Holly at LVVRC that someone should be calling me once Amos is out of surgery to inform me on his status and how the surgery went. So all day I waited on pins and needles for a phone call to let me know how it went. and I waited... and I waited.. So, at 4:30 pm with no word, I couldn't take it anymore and called LVVRC to see if maybe they forgot to call or to see if something went wrong. Holly at LVVRC informed me that Amos was fine, but they had a lot of surgeries today and they hadn't taken Amos in to the operating room yet and that he was on the schedule to be the last surgery of the day. While I was on the phone with Holly, a surgery tech at LVVRC called up to the front to let them know they were prepping to bring Amos into the operating room then. Whew! Finally, he is on his way to the operating room and the long surgery is about to start. Holly told me that since the office closes and shuts down their phones at 5pm that I would have to wait until the surgery was over for someone to call me with an update on Amos' status. So again I waited... and waited... and waited some more... I got home from work at 6:45 pm and still had not heard anything. Now I'm starting to get concerned that either I wasn't going to get a call or that the surgery was taking a lot longer than I thought. But yet, I waited some more, hoping to hear something soon. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it until the morning when the office opened to find out anything and that if that was the case it was going to be a L O N G night. Finally at 8:30pm Dr. Geels called me to let me know that Amos made it through the surgery with flying colors and was sleeping the drugs off peacefully in his cage. Whew. Dr. Geels informed me that they had planned to operate on his left hip, but under anesthesia he determined that the right hip was a little worse off so they operated on the right hip today instead. Dr. Geels opted to use a cement less hip joint in lieu of the cemented hip joint as the cemented joints tend to come loose over the coarse of time and cement less joints actually bond to the bone of the femur so they have less slippage over time. He also informed us that now comes the critical time, as the most common post-operative complication in large breed dogs is a femur fracture or break. So we have to be really careful and keep him confined and limit all activity for at least six weeks. That's going to be a bit challenging with such a big dog, but I want the surgery to be as successful as possible and the recovery to go as smooth as possible so he can get back in for the second surgery to his left hip when he is ready.
Dr. Geels said he would follow-up with me in the morning after he does his rounds with all their patients to let me know if Amos will be discharged on Saturday morning as we hope. So, off we went and took Casey to spend the next two nights at Aunt Nancy's and Uncle Jon's house, just in case, so we can leave tomorrow afternoon to head to Vegas to pick him up from LVVRC on Saturday if he is ready to go. Yeah! If there are any problems with discharging him on Saturday we will have to wait and pick him up on Monday morning. So we are hoping everything goes well tomorrow and we will get the green light to pick him up on Saturday. We'll keep you posted...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Journey to Bring Amos Home With Us
After we returned from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary I convinced Rick that we needed to adopt Amos (It wasn't really too diffucult) and now I was set on bringing him home with us. Well, that was not an easy thing to do since Amos is not the ordinary dog that Best Friends tries to place in a home. Amos has horrible hip dysplasia and is in dire need of two total hip replacements in order for him to be more comfortable. The staff at Best Friends was working with Amos' Vet, Dr. Mike, and trying to determine if Amos was a candidate for the hip replacements or not. Over the course of the next two months (November to December) we waited for word from Best Friends as to Amos' final prognosis and if he would have the hip surgeries. While we waited we went ahead with our home visit to make sure that when the time came for Amos to come home with us that we were through the final approval process for the adoption.
In the meantime, in early November our oldest Golden, Sunny, became increasingly ill and after several visits to the vet it was determined that she had an inoperable spinal tumor. Since Sunny was in incredible pain and her quality of life was diminshed greatly with no hope of recovery, Rick and I made the ultimate decision to let her go to the Rainbow Bridge. This was the hardest decision that I have ever had to make in my adult life. I've had dogs my entire life, but I have never had to make that decision before. Rick and I decided to have her cremated and we plan to place her ashes at Angel Canyon at Best Friends Animal Sancutary in the spring. It now became even more dire for us to bring Amos home with us, not only for ourselves, but for our other Golden, Casey, who was crushed by the loss of his faithful companion.
Well, shortly after Thanksgiving, we were contacted by Marti, our adoption coordinator at Best Friends, who has been working tirelessly through the process with us on our adoption of Amos. She informed us that Dr. Mike had approved Amos for surgery and that he was sending Amos to Las Vegas, NV (2 hour drive from Kanab, UT) to the Las Vegas Veterinary Referral Center for evaluation for surgery. Sarah Kubacki, a vet tech with Best Friends took Amos to LVVRC on December 11, 2009 for evaluation. Dr. Geels at LVVRC approved Amos for surgery for the first of his hip surgeries to take place on Thursday January 14, 2010. He will be having a total hip replacement followed by evaluation in 12 weeks for another total hip replacement. Once we were notified of the confirmed surgery date we made arrangements with Marti at Best Friends for us to pick Amos up in Las Vegas after his surgery to finally bring him home with us. We have been in contact with LVVRC and Best Firends to coordinate his pick-up from LVVRC after his surgery and are traveling to Las Vegas on Friday January 15 to bring him home on Saturday January 16.
Once we bring him home we will have the task of rehabilitating him and going through all of the follow-up appointments for his care. After approximately 12 weeks we will have to return him to LVVRC for evaluation to determine if he is still a candidate for the additional total hip replacement. If he is still a candidate, he will have the additional surgery and we will then bring him home permanently.
In the meantime, in early November our oldest Golden, Sunny, became increasingly ill and after several visits to the vet it was determined that she had an inoperable spinal tumor. Since Sunny was in incredible pain and her quality of life was diminshed greatly with no hope of recovery, Rick and I made the ultimate decision to let her go to the Rainbow Bridge. This was the hardest decision that I have ever had to make in my adult life. I've had dogs my entire life, but I have never had to make that decision before. Rick and I decided to have her cremated and we plan to place her ashes at Angel Canyon at Best Friends Animal Sancutary in the spring. It now became even more dire for us to bring Amos home with us, not only for ourselves, but for our other Golden, Casey, who was crushed by the loss of his faithful companion.
Well, shortly after Thanksgiving, we were contacted by Marti, our adoption coordinator at Best Friends, who has been working tirelessly through the process with us on our adoption of Amos. She informed us that Dr. Mike had approved Amos for surgery and that he was sending Amos to Las Vegas, NV (2 hour drive from Kanab, UT) to the Las Vegas Veterinary Referral Center for evaluation for surgery. Sarah Kubacki, a vet tech with Best Friends took Amos to LVVRC on December 11, 2009 for evaluation. Dr. Geels at LVVRC approved Amos for surgery for the first of his hip surgeries to take place on Thursday January 14, 2010. He will be having a total hip replacement followed by evaluation in 12 weeks for another total hip replacement. Once we were notified of the confirmed surgery date we made arrangements with Marti at Best Friends for us to pick Amos up in Las Vegas after his surgery to finally bring him home with us. We have been in contact with LVVRC and Best Firends to coordinate his pick-up from LVVRC after his surgery and are traveling to Las Vegas on Friday January 15 to bring him home on Saturday January 16.
Once we bring him home we will have the task of rehabilitating him and going through all of the follow-up appointments for his care. After approximately 12 weeks we will have to return him to LVVRC for evaluation to determine if he is still a candidate for the additional total hip replacement. If he is still a candidate, he will have the additional surgery and we will then bring him home permanently.
Friday, January 8, 2010
New Blog....
At the urging of a few friends I've decided to start a blog to chronicle the trials and tribulations we go through with and for our dogs. As many of you may know, we do not have children and our two beloved Golden Retrievers, Casey and Sunny, in a way have become our kids. With their individual personalities and unconditional love they have transformed our lives to overflowing with joy and adoration.
When we first got together, we knew we wanted to get a dog, so we did what probably every new dog buyer does, we looked in the paper. Trying to be as responsible as we could, we then researched the different breeds and breeders in the area and settled on our first bundle of fur named Casey, a Golden Retriever. Casey was a really good and easy puppy. He was potty trained in two days and never cried in his crate at night. We were pretty lucky with our choice in our first dog. When Casey was about a year old, we noticed him getting sadder and sadder when we would leave to go to work in the mornings. He didn't want us to go, he wanted us to stay with him. We discussed this with our vet and she recommended that we get a friend to keep him company during the day while we were gone at work. At the time, a co-worker of mine was fostering a female Golden Retriever through a local Golden Rescue organization and asked me if we were interested in adopting her. Her name was Sunny and she was a four year old female. We decided to try an introduction between her and Casey to see if it would work out. Well a two week trial visit turned into 10 years. They were inseparable and fast became the light of our lives. In Spetember of this last year, Sunny started to slow down a little bit and we knew that she was probably not going to be with us much longer, since 14 years old is pretty old for a larger dog, especially a Golden. So we decided to look into adding another member to our furry family to help Casey (and who am I kidding??-US) through the loss of Sunny when the time came.
When we first got together, we knew we wanted to get a dog, so we did what probably every new dog buyer does, we looked in the paper. Trying to be as responsible as we could, we then researched the different breeds and breeders in the area and settled on our first bundle of fur named Casey, a Golden Retriever. Casey was a really good and easy puppy. He was potty trained in two days and never cried in his crate at night. We were pretty lucky with our choice in our first dog. When Casey was about a year old, we noticed him getting sadder and sadder when we would leave to go to work in the mornings. He didn't want us to go, he wanted us to stay with him. We discussed this with our vet and she recommended that we get a friend to keep him company during the day while we were gone at work. At the time, a co-worker of mine was fostering a female Golden Retriever through a local Golden Rescue organization and asked me if we were interested in adopting her. Her name was Sunny and she was a four year old female. We decided to try an introduction between her and Casey to see if it would work out. Well a two week trial visit turned into 10 years. They were inseparable and fast became the light of our lives. In Spetember of this last year, Sunny started to slow down a little bit and we knew that she was probably not going to be with us much longer, since 14 years old is pretty old for a larger dog, especially a Golden. So we decided to look into adding another member to our furry family to help Casey (and who am I kidding??-US) through the loss of Sunny when the time came.
In October my friend Nancy invited me to go to Kanab, UT to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Best Friends is the largest animal sanctuary in the country and is a "no kill" shelter to over 700 animals of all kinds, shapes and sizes. We volunteered at Best Friends on October 30, 2009. We volunteered to work in Dogtown in the "Old Friends" section. It was here that I met and fell in love with a Saint Bernard/Great Dane mix named Amos. After taking several dogs from the "Old Friends" section out for their morning walks we were asked by Joyce, one of the staff at Best Friends, if we would like to take one of the dogs out into town for some socialization and exposure to life outside the sanctuary. Nancy and I decided to take Amos for a stroll through town and to get some coffee. Well, needless to say, after about 30 minutes with him I was smitten and set on seeing if we could start the adoption process.... The only problem was how to break it to my husband who was 400 miles away that I was adding a rather large member to our furry family of two Golden Retrievers. One look at him and how could he say no?
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