One of the events that took place this summer was Lola's surgery. I kindly call it her "lady surgery" but most veterinarians call it a spay. I like "lady surgery" better.
Little Lola Bear was an absolute trooper. I won't recap all of the gory details, but it was quite a ride. To begin, I'm not quite sure what Ryan and I were thinking in getting Lola spayed during a road trip. Especially the long, ridiculous and exhausting one we took to four different cities in July. But we're planners, and we just added her surgery in with all of the other craziness-thinking it would be no big deal.
We actually dropped Lola off on a Friday morning at the vet in Columbus, NE. A family friend of ours is a vet and she did a fantastic job with my parent's dog, Zoey, so we figured we'd bring in Lola since we knew and trusted her. Lola had to stay overnight, so as we walked out the door we knew we would see her the next morning. What great practice for parenthood someday. Now I can understand when moms and dads say the first day of school was the hardest day ever. I didn't want to leave her with anybody at all, I knew she was in safe hands, and that they would take good care of her...but leaving her alone with people I didn't know very well was tough. Ryan reassured me, she would be fine.
Thankfully, we got a call on Friday after the surgery and everything went OK. We were to pick her up on Saturday morning. When we went to pick her up on Saturday morning everything seemed to be just fine- just like they said. We were told how to take her staples out after 3-4 weeks and to make sure she didn't scratch or bite at them in case of infection or the worst...her pulling them out. :(
This is where I freaked. The vet basically said that the staples needed to stay in as long as possible. She did have a laser incision, so underneath the staples she was also lasered shut (Austin Powers Dr. Evil anyone? "frickin' laserbeams?) but if she got to the incision and bit it open her insides could fall out! The vet stated this much more medically than I did, because all I heard was..."her insides could fall out." WHAT? are you kidding me here? PANIC MODE.
I took a few deep breaths and we got Lola snuggled into the car for the ride back to my parents house. Lola was staying with my parents while we attended a wedding in Lincoln- but all I could think of was, "her insides could fall out" are you kidding me? Ryan rolled his eyes at me, and said that that was THE WORST case scenario, and that I shouldn't worry.
So, we went about our weekend. Went to another wedding on Saturday and stayed in Lincoln that night before meeting my parents with Lola on our way to Iowa. (if you're still reading this- good work, I promise you're halfway there)
Our drive to Okoboji was about 3.5 hours. I sat in the back seat with a 45 pound Lola on my lap the entire time. A little background- Lola is a sweet sweet girl, and she snuggles from time to time, but she doesn't usually fully lay with you- she needs her space, and with all of that fur I can totally understand why. But on this occasion it was quite different. She only wanted to be near me or Ryan and was clearly in pain. :( our poor little lady...it was tough to see her like that.
Once we were in Okoboji, she hung out in her kennel 99% of the time. We were nervous when we saw a few of her staples were missing after checking in on her, so we decided to try the t-shirt method my uncle had suggested with one of his old hunting dogs. Lola didn't mind wearing the shirt at all- and actually looked pretty funny.
The healing process was a good 3-4 weeks. The first week was brutal, she wasn't all that energized and mainly needed to lay around. As she got closer and closer to healing we had to remind her not to jump or run-which is REALLY hard to do with such an active dog. Thankfully, she healed just fine and all of my worrying (Ryan didn't worry one bit-not that I can recall) really was for nothing.
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