Home Sweet Home

My little Frankers has been home since Thursday! They kept him for two nights since he had a lot of swelling and drainage. He was super anxious the first day back home, but after some good rest I can tell he’s been feeling better. For the most part he’s been getting around really well on three legs! He does seem to hesitate more with figuring out how to sit or lay down, but he can be up in a second if he wants. And he pooped twice on Friday, which I wasn’t expecting since most people said it took almost a week for their pups to poop post-surgery so I was very excited. And he’s been pooping pretty regularly since then, so yay for a properly functioning digestive system! 😉

It’s definitely been weird for me though. Every time I see the giant suture line I feel a little bit of a shock. I can tell at times he’s been in some pain or a little freaked out, and that’s hard for me to swallow.

He sometimes really scares me with how much activity he wants to do (*child you just had major surgery calm yourself!*). The other day I noticed that he had started dripping blood, a pretty good amount, and he was anxious and running around while I was trying very hard to calm him down. I thought he might have torn it open or something so we ran up to the vet, with him bleeding and me panicking the whole way, but my vet said it’s just drainage and he didn’t rip any stitches open. She did give me some sedatives, because apparently not even a missing leg can slow him down.

And sometimes he really worries me with how little activity he wants to do. Frank is not, by nature, a very relaxed dog. Before all of this started it seemed like he was constantly in motion. It’s hard for me to watch him lay on the ground and not want to move.

On the whole though he’s been doing so incredibly well. Praying there won’t be any complications (*ahem, I’m looking at you infections*), because I don’t think my fragile heart could take it.

Sometimes I just stop and wonder how we got here. Not too long ago he was running around, an unstoppable force on four legs (and I really do mean unstoppable, this kid has got some muscles). How did this happen? Why? Sometimes I weep. I weep because I just can’t make sense of what happened to him. I try not to think about the four-legged life he might have had, but it’s still hard for me to imagine what his new three-legged life will be. People keep saying he’ll be happy and won’t even notice it’s gone, which I know is true but it’s hard at this point to visualize it as a reality for him. But we are already on this path, and all I can do is keep as much positivity as possible and be strong for my boy while he needs me.

PS. He’s supposed to get his stitches out on Friday if everything looks good!