Hi, dear readers. I’m still trapped in Atlanta; the change-of-flight fee came out to $400, and it turns out that Continental doesn’t have a dog-surgery bereavement policy. Ru had his surgery today, and Amy e-mailed me this update:<\/p>\n
Dr. Raginski said Ru came through surgery well and is just starting to wake up. There was significant damage in two deep gouges to his right back leg near the knee, which they patched up as best they could by removing a bit of tissue and stitching him up with drains. The drains will keep the wounds open a little bit so they don’t sustain more damage if there is any swelling post-surgery. Because a grey’s skin is so delicate, she said he may pop a few sutures, so we need to keep him confined in a crate for at least the next 2-3 days to make sure he doesn’t use his leg at all.<\/p>\n
Dr. Raginski said that she doesn’t expect the worst-case scenario to happen, but I wanted to know what we might be facing: The wound may dehis (spontaneously open) if the skin doesn’t heal well or if the muscle tissue becomes infected (which would be much worse than a problem with his skin). At that point, he’d need more surgery either to restitch the skin or to take away even more tissue.<\/p>\n
But at this point a second surgery is still up in the air. We’ll have to see how he heals after this one.<\/p>\n
I’ll keep you all posted as I hear more about our boy. Thanks for the good thoughts you’re sending our way. :)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It looks like Ru’s going to stay at the animal hospital for another night, so they can keep an eye on him and try to keep him from noshing on his sutures. I think my dad’s going to pick him up tomorrow and take care of him till we get home.<\/p>\n
I also received photos from my dog-walker of Rufus on the way to the animal hospital. But I looked at one of them and realized that they would only make me feel more enraged and powerless. So I’m not going to look at them till I’m home and able to pet my beloved dog.<\/p>\n
I’m sticking with my original conference plan for this evening and taking some work-pals to the Braves game. They know Ru’s my “fur-kid” and understand both why I’m pretty distraught and why their friendship & joviality will be a good thing for me.<\/p>\n
Because if I spend another night brooding in my hotel room (and maybe running a few more miles on a treadmill in the hotel gym), I’m gonna go crazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi, dear readers. I’m still trapped in Atlanta; the change-of-flight fee came out to $400, and it turns out that Continental doesn’t have a dog-surgery bereavement policy. Ru had his surgery today, and Amy e-mailed me this update: Dr. Raginski said Ru came through surgery well and is just starting to wake up. There was … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Rufus update”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[111],"class_list":["post-3952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis","tag-rufus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-11K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4030,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-stitch-in-ru","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":0},"title":"A stitch in Ru","author":"Gil","date":"June 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"About one hour after I posted that item on how great Rufus' bandages were holding up, they began their pilgrimage\u00c2\u00a0 down his leg. Still, this wrap lasted nearly 48 hours after his Tuesday surgery, which saved me a ton of aggravation. We went down for a 1pm followup and rebandage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3954,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-recovery","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":1},"title":"Rufus recovery","author":"Gil","date":"May 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My dad picked up Rufus from the vet yesterday, brought him to our house, and stayed with him all day until Amy got home. After Wednesday's surgery on his back right leg, during which he had two drains attached to his wounds, Rufus has to stay in his crate till\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3965,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-update-2","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":2},"title":"Rufus Update","author":"Gil","date":"May 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just back from the vet! At least half the staff of the office came in to see Rufus, since he'd made such an impression on everyone last week. He held up well for this exam, although they decided to pre-emptively put a stylish muzzle on him. I have a picture\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4067,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-unzipped","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":3},"title":"Rufus Unzipped!","author":"Gil","date":"June 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One more vet appointment, one step closer on the Rufus Road To Recovery! I took Ru down to the animal hospital this afternoon to see what they think of his recovery from surgery 10 days ago. I thought the wounds were both healing well, but I'm no vet, so I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3984,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-surgery-great","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":4},"title":"More surgery? Great!","author":"Gil","date":"May 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I took Rufus down to the vet this afternoon for a followup. He'd shrugged his way out of his bandages before we got to the stairs here at home, so I decided to just cover his leg with the sweatpant-bandage, since the vet was just going to take everything off\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4024,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/did-he-use-krazy-glue","url_meta":{"origin":3952,"position":5},"title":"Did he use Krazy Glue?","author":"Gil","date":"June 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No Rufus news since our last update, except to note that the bandages our vet applied after Ru's surgery on Tuesday are still holding up! This is a great relief to me, as a big source of my consternation and anxiety during this episode has been the need to constantly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3953,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3952\/revisions\/3953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}