{"id":4030,"date":"2009-06-05T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-05T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4030"},"modified":"2009-06-05T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-05T19:30:00","slug":"a-stitch-in-ru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-stitch-in-ru","title":{"rendered":"A stitch in Ru"},"content":{"rendered":"

About one hour after I posted that item on how great Rufus’ bandages were holding up<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

We went down for a 1pm followup and rebandage today. Both our lead vet (Dr. A) and the vet who handled Rufus’ first operation (Dr. R) came in to check him out. Dr. A cut off the failing bandages, carefully peeled the tape from Rufus’ tender skin, and announced, “WOW!<\/em> He’s healing great!”<\/p>\n

He assumed that some of the stitches would have torn by now, either through Rufus’ attempts at getting to them or just through his regular activity. I didn’t tell them that I’ve been on 24-hour alert, zooming into action the moment I hear the jangle of the metal tags on Rufus’ collar. But I did let them know that, while I let Ru walk down the stairs because he knows to keep from using that leg, I still carry him up the stairs as well as into the car. I figure the strain of that motion, where he pushes off with both rear legs, is more likely to cause the stitches to tear, especially with the double-leap he’d have to do in order to climb our stairs. Dr. R was glad that I wasn’t making little exceptions and taking shortcuts.<\/p>\n

Then Dr. A said, “Well, it looks like we’re done with bandages!”<\/p>\n

“Excuse me?” I said, shocked and already making a mental inventory of the self-adhering bandages, gauze wraps, sterile pads and other accoutrements that we’ve stockpiled.<\/p>\n

“He’s healing so well, I don’t think he needs the bandages anymore. As long as you can keep him from reaching back there and chewing on his stitches, he should be fine till we take them out in a week or so.”<\/p>\n

Dr. R added that she couldn’t believe how much better his skin was than when she performed the first surgery, a day after the attack. “There really wasn’t much skin to work with,” she said, “but this looks great.”<\/p>\n

Dr. A recommended we pick up a compression wrap of some kind that can slide over the leg to protect it from Ru’s compulsive grooming, but said that his sweatshirt-cum<\/em>-hip-wader was a good setup to keep the area covered. They still want us to keep Ru’s activity restricted \u00e2\u20ac\u201d yard-only bathroom breaks, with no full walkies \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but felt that it would be fine for Ru to promenade tomorrow morning at the farmer’s market.<\/p>\n

Rufus, meanwhile, is simply thankful that there’s no more medical tape involved.<\/p>\n

And, once again, the exam room turned into the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera<\/em>, as virtually every employee of the animal hospital came in to say hello to Rufus, give him some rubbies and scratchies, and get a look at his big, heart-melting eyes.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 today. Both our lead vet … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A stitch in Ru”<\/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-4030","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-130","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4024,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/did-he-use-krazy-glue","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":0},"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":[]},{"id":4000,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-6109","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 6\/1\/09","author":"Gil","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The first three installments of Chris Ware's \"Rusty Brown\" book, and some of Plutarch's life of Alcibiades. What I'm listening to: Quadrophenia. What I'm watching: Back-to-back-to-back episodes of Reno 911!, The Wrestler, and, once again, the most entertaining movie ever: Kung Fu Hustle. What I'm drinking: Plymouth\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":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001NB5ACI","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3973,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/w-r-u-f-all-rufus-all-the-time","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":2},"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":[]},{"id":3971,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/back-to-square-one","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":3},"title":"Back to square one. . .","author":"Gil","date":"May 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":". . . if not earlier. We'd been taking walks solo this weekend but, thinking Rufus was pretty settled in his crate after his dinner, we took a 40-minute walk together this evening. He hadn't tried to lick at his wounds since I'd sprayed the bandages with some bitter apple\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":4088,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rufus-see-well","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":4},"title":"Rufus See Well","author":"Gil","date":"June 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week (?) (seriously, I can't keep track of days anymore), the police officer who handled the report for Rufus' dog-attack case stopped by. Because of that letter I got from the Akita's owners stating that Rufus had walked into their yard, I wanted to check with the officer that\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":4008,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dont-crate-me-in","url_meta":{"origin":4030,"position":5},"title":"Don’t Crate Me In","author":"Gil","date":"June 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ready for another Rufus update? I thought so! Our boy went to the animal hospital for surgery today, and all went wonderfully! The vet said that he managed to stitch up the entire rear wound, and about 80% of the front wound. If the sutures hold up (read: if we\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\/4030","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=4030"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4033,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030\/revisions\/4033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}