A Bloody Mess

My therapist said I sounded like a typical new mom. We’ll get to discussing the therapist and the UAH shooting related anxiety later, because that is something I’d like to share with you, but right now the important thing is the mom comment, and it has nothing to do with why I’m in therapy.

My therapist said I sounded like a new mom when I described to her the stress and exhaustion and worry I underwent a couple of weeks ago concerning Prada’s recent veterinary history. In December Prada picked up a stomach bug of some sort. No idea how she got it, but she got something similar a couple of years ago and the same regimen of antibiotics, probiotics, and rice-and-kibble mixture settled her right out. But the week following that, a friend drew my attention to a tiny little lump on Prada’s shoulder hidden under her thick fur. Apparently this friend is a much more thorough dog scratcher than I am? Prada agrees, and is quite a fan of this friend.

Anyway, when I felt the mass, I felt an immediate cold surge of energy thorugh my stomach. Mass=layman’s term for CANCER!!! But, I told myself, the mass was mobile, and soft, as if containing at least some fluid. That could mean any number of things entirely benign. It could be a cyst, or a fatty nodule. Either way, I took Prada back to the vet to have it checked out, and the vet informed me that it was most likely a cyst filled with blood from a blood vessel burst on a bruise-quality impact. Like, say, careening around a corner in my apartment in pursuit of a squeaky toy, or banging up against the edges of my husband’s desk as she tries to get underneath it and nest in the ever-growing pile of socks he hordes down there. I trust my vet; he is knowledgeable, practical and excellent at reassuring me. Prada and I went home satisfied, and I thought nothing of it all thorugh the holidays.

The thing about working with a service dog is that the dog is like a spouse and a child rolled up into one. She takes care of me, and I take care of her. I thought I had dealt with all my maternal freak-outs over Prada’s health when we went through her seizure diagnosis and treatment, and the eventual resolution thereof. Turns out, I was wrong. Each illness or injury is brand new, with a brand new slew of worries.

In January of the new year I realised that the mass on Prada’s shoulder had grown large enough to fill my cupped hand. So back to the vet we went! Our regular vet was out, and another vet was running the office. She was charming, intelligent, informed, and very good at assuaging my fears while taking them seriously. She never once made me feel like I’d overreacted. After hearing one or two stories from my mom about physician’s assistants with less-than-stellar “soothe the mother” skills, I realise that this quality is very important in a pediatrician. Or a vet.

The vet assured us that it was indeed a blood cyst, and that Prada’s body would naturally reabsorb the congealed blood, but she could attempt to drain it manually if we would like. I opted to have it drained because of the cyst’s proximity to where the harness rests just behind her shoulder. If it grew any larger before it started shrinking it could become very uncomfortable for my partner. So the vet took Prada into the back room (that phrase when it coincides with a doctor’s office, particularly a vet’s office, reminds me of the movie Homeward Bound) and sedated her and tried to drain the cyst with a needle. That proved ineffective because of the thickness of the solid material stuffed in that lump – I don’t know the biological terminology for it but the vet’s description was rather distrusting – so she lanced the cyst open and drained it that way, then rinsed it with saline. She returned Prada to us, and explained that she’d left the incision, roughly one centimeter across, open so it would continue draining over the next few days.

Now, Prada is a completely coward in the vet’s office. She quivers and cries and hides and attempts escape at every opportunity. The dog the vet returned to me after Prada’s procedure, however, was very heavily sedated. So heavily sedated that she just leaned against my leg, then flopped out like a limp stuffed dog in the waiting room while my husband paid for the visit. Even the vet tech checking us out was astounded at how relaxed Prada was in the vet’s office. Good rugs, I guess! The vet gave us a towel to wrap around Prada so she wouldn’t bleed all over the car, and off we went.

Prada managed to climb into the car just fine on her own, but apparently going down is another story when recovering from anesthetics. She refused to even try climbing out of the car when we got home, so Derek lifted her out, but then she made it up the stairs to the apartment without assistance.

Prada bled a lot more than I anticipated. I wound up calling the emergency vet (doggy 9-1-1) and asking about the amount of blood she could safely use. The vet assured me that it was normal, but I could bring her in if I wanted to. Service dog owners, you really should make sure you have both a regular vet and an after-hours/weekends vet. The reassurance is invaluable. My husband and I had quite an evening trying to contain a very loopy German Shepherd spurting blood in every direction. Eventually my husband had to shave a segment of her shoulder to avoid getting it matted over in dried blood, which would increase the risk of infection. And I gave her a tablet of Benadryl to continue the sedation so she wouldn’t move around so much and exacerbate the wound. The home office looked like a murder scene, with all the blood spattered on the carpet, walls, and Derek’s desk, and it was only after I reached that conclusion that it occurred to me that vinyl is much easier to clean than carpet. We put Prada in the bathroom with food, water, a soft towel to curl up on, and a bone to chew, and turned the light out so that the darkness and the sedation would help her sleep.

In six and a half years of partnership, Prada and I have never spent the night in separate rooms.

Prada woke up around 3am, and the sedation had worn off. I know this because she started shrieking and crying very loudly and trying to climb up the bathroom door to get out and find me, and that woke me up. When I went Into the bathroom to check on her, she was nearly hyperventilating. Clearly that was not a viable solution. So Derek and I put down towels in the bedroom and brought her in there with us to spend the rest of the night. We kept Prada contained in the bedroom for the next two days, with either myself or Derek in there to keep her company. By Day Three she was active enough to want to play, but I spent the next two days trying to keep her calm so she wouldn’t cause any more bleeding. The first two times we worked together after that, I put an old t-shirt of mine on her to protect the shaved area from the harness. Prada was unimpressed by her new attire, but it served the purpose very well, and now my shirt has blood stains on it to match the wood stain smiley my sister painted on the back during a landscaping project a few years ago.

The cyst has decreased in size to about 30% of what it started as, and the incision has healed to the point where I can consider giving her a bath to clean the matted blood out of the rest of her fur. She will be so thrilled about that! As the vet predicted, the cyst continues to reabsorb into her body, now that it’s not draining outward.