Buster's Surgery (and summary of her current medical status)

Buster had surgery on March 21st...I dropped her off at the vet's office early in the morning before I went to work. Richie and I went to pick her up that evening but as we were driving there, they said that she wasn't recovering as quickly as they wanted her to, so they wanted to keep her overnight. They said we could still come by to see her, though, so we did.

We went into the back and they said that they had just given her some more pain medication, so she would be a little loopy. She was tied with a leash to the cabinets and she was sitting on some towels and blankets, which were all bloody from her incisions. She looked totally out of it and it was hard to tell if she could even tell we were there. She was sitting up, but she looked like she was about to fall asleep. Whenever it looked like she was about to lie down, she would jerk up -- I think it was too painful for her. After about 10 or 15 minutes, though, she managed to get comfortable enough to lie down and go to sleep.

The next day, I went to pick her up with my Mom and she was like another dog! She walked normally and didn't seem to be in any pain. She had an E-collar on and she was a little freaked out, banging into stuff. It was pretty hysterical, but we decided to take it off as soon as we got to the car.

After her surgery, Buster was basically on 5 different medications -- a pain pill, antibiotic, ear infection medication, an anti-nausea pill, and Pepcid AC. Whenever I'm getting Buster's medications ready, it reminds me of my mom, Uncle Tachi, and Auntie Yoko and all of their medications!

Overall, Buster seemed to recover from her surgery very well. The incision in her leg started to ooze a few days after the surgery, so we took her back to the vet to get it checked out, but they didn't seem too concerned about it. She had to have her staples in a little longer than we had originally thought, but other than that, they healed up nicely.

When we had her staples removed, we also showed Dr. Ikezawa Buster's tail damage. By now, the two small scabs had morphed into a full-blown bloody mess. The whole tip of her tail was bloody and raw, and she kept licking at it if we didn't keep it wrapped, aside from splattering the walls of our apartment with blood. Dr. Ikezawa said that we should give it a few weeks and if it didn't get any better, they would have to amputate it.

We've been keeping it wrapped and we've noticed that it has a really foul, disgusting odor. I was hoping it was just from Buster licking the rubbery Pet Wrap material. Richie insisted that he thought her tail was rotting.

We also had noticed a new lump near one of her mammary glands. Dr. Ikezawa said that we should just monitor it since her other mammary gland tumors had been benign or mostly benign.

The other night, Buster rolled over into her weird sleeping position and I noticed she had this large bulge (about the size of 1 1/2 golf balls) in her abdomen area. I thought maybe it was a hernia, so we scheduled yet another vet appointment. This time, I couldn't go because I was tied up at work (I was there until Friday night at 8:30pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), so Richie took her.

In her weird sleeping position

He showed Dr. Ikezawa the bulge and she said it was just scar tissue and fluid, not a hernia (the first good news yet!!!). Unfortunately, Richie was right about Buster's tail - Dr. Ikezawa thought maybe some of the tissue was rotting after all. NASTY! She suggested that we not wrap it for awhile and see if drying it out helps at all. The problem with that is that she'll just keep whacking it and licking it, and it'll never heal. So it looks like Buster'll be having another surgery pretty soon. :(

Oh, the other bit of news on Buster's medical situation is that she hasn't really vomited/regurgitated in over a week! We've been trying a number of different things -- switching to a different food, feeding her on the stairs so that her esophagus is a little more vertical, the Pepcid, and the anti-nausea medication. So hopefully we've got it under control now!

To sum up all of her medical problems (I've already talked about most of them, but some of them I haven't even written about!)...


3/14 - Tapeworms
3/14 - Lump on her elbow
3/14 - Regurgitation/Megaesophagus?
3/15 - Mammary gland lumps
3/15 - Ear infection
3/16 - Low thyroid levels
3/20 - Tail damage
3/22 - Surgery to remove lumps
3/24 - Fluid in shoulder (from sensitivity to injections)
3/25 - Incision oozing
4/2 - New mammary gland lump
4/10 - Tail smelling bad/rotting
4/12 - Scar tissue/fluid in her abdomen