{"id":3965,"date":"2009-05-23T10:39:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-23T14:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2009-05-23T10:39:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-23T14:39:39","slug":"rufus-update-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-update-2","title":{"rendered":"Rufus Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 of this, which I’ll post soon. He looked like the Bizarro Ace the Bat-Hound<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of Ru’s two main wounds, the front one is healing up just fine, but the rear one isn’t suturing up so well, so he may need another surgery in a few weeks. We’ll be going back Tuesday morning to have the drain (a long rubber tube) removed from his leg, and next weekend we’ll have a better idea of how that rear wound is doing.<\/p>\n

The vet re-wrapped his leg and made the final cover out of a neon green bandage that has some bitter-taste chemical in it (to keep him from licking it). She told me that Rufus reacts kinda badly whenever he has a new wrap; the minute she was done and he was allowed to start walking, he yelped and kept twisting in circles, trying to get at the new bandage.<\/p>\n

The thing is, he did the same thing last night when I put a wrap at the top of his bandage, to cover the part that had slipped down since Wednesday. I thought I’d wrapped him too tightly, but the vet explained that he just needs a little while to adjust.<\/p>\n

Since this was my first time talking to the vet since Ru was brought to them on Tuesday, I asked about his long-term prospects of recovery. I had no idea how long it’ll take him to get back to his old self, as far as going on hikes, or even just walking around the block for a mile. In fact, I didn’t know if the nature of his injuries meant he would never<\/em> do that stuff again. That’d be awful, since he really enjoys our meanders in the neighborhood. (I’m convinced that he’ll have no lasting ‘mental’ trauma from the attack.)<\/p>\n

The vet said that if the rear wound does require an extra surgery, we could be looking at total recovery period of as long as . . . six weeks or so. Total.<\/em> If he does better (and if there’s no complication due to infection, which is my big fear), he could be back up to snuff in about four weeks.<\/p>\n

So, as gory and grotesque as his injuries are, we have a lot of hope that he’ll be back to normal by mid-summer. Just in time for those mid-90’s days that we hate going out in!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 of this, which I’ll post … <\/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":[212,111],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis","tag-greyhound","tag-rufus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-11X","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4030,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-stitch-in-ru","url_meta":{"origin":3965,"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":3961,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-recovery-update","url_meta":{"origin":3965,"position":1},"title":"Rufus recovery update","author":"Gil","date":"May 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No real news over the rest of the day. He rests in his crate, tries to lick his wounds, gets talked down, and goes out to pee every so often. We go to the vet tomorrow to see if it's okay for him to start using the stairs. Here's our\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3611\/3555368012_274e9eb85d.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3954,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-recovery","url_meta":{"origin":3965,"position":2},"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":3950,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bad-news","url_meta":{"origin":3965,"position":3},"title":"Bad news","author":"Gil","date":"May 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Rufus got attacked by a neighborhood dog yesterday evening. He's having the first of two surgeries today to patch up the two gouges in his rear left leg and put in a drain. The second surgery will be in 3-4 weeks. If you're the praying \/ wishful thinking \/ dog-reiki\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":3965,"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":3973,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/w-r-u-f-all-rufus-all-the-time","url_meta":{"origin":3965,"position":5},"title":"W-R-U-F: all Rufus, all the time","author":"Gil","date":"May 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"[UPDATE IN A NUTSHELL: we're gonna keep his leg wrapped, keep him on reduced activity, and continue putting clean gauze pads over the two wounds. On Friday, we'll reassess removing the drain.] Well, yesterday's horrible post notwithstanding (and I was a goddamn wreck after coming home to that), Rufus may\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3662\/3566176561_7274989845.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","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=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}