Blakely's Surgery

The Houston House had an interesting weekend.  Our Blakers is still a conehead from her surgery, and it has been extremely challenging to get to stay calm, not jump, not run, and not bite at said cone of shame.  All of the above is nearly impossible when you have a chocolate lab puppy.  Especially our B-Girl.

You know that saying "God doesn't give you patience, He gives you an opportunity to be patient"? Well that's entirely true for us this past weekend.  Our days began at 7:05, and not a minute later, with Blakely howling from her crate.  Because she needs to go out?  Because she's hungry?  No, no.  Simply because she's bored, and she can, and she wants to be with us 24/7.  Awesome.  Then it's time for her first abbreviated walk (no more than 5 minutes, poor thing).  Wrestle her to get her regular collar on.  Wrestle her to get her to sit and stay.  Wrestle her out the door without her banging into everything imaginable on the way.  Wrestle her not to try to jump the fence out the yard in excitement.  Wrestle her not to run down the driveway.  Ahhh, and now you are walking (10 minutes later).

Her walks have been pretty hilarious with the cone actually, because when she drops her head to sniff anything, she picks up a pile of leaves on the reverse.  We say that she is just helping us rake.  It's a funny sight.  She then gobbles her way through breakfast from within her protective plastic sphere, slurps down her water, and congratulations, now it's 7:45 am.  We've got the whole day ahead of us to keep her "calm", and to deter gnawing at her e-collar (which we've had to duct tape together several times over).  She then gives us a look of "now what?".

We called our vet on Tuesday, 4 days after her surgery, to let him know we were having trouble keeping Blakely-canine reserved post-surgery.  He recommended Benadryl, as did many of our friends who had gone through this before.  We thought- awesome, a miracle just waiting to happen.  We'd been told how groggy the doggies will be, how they just nap all day, how you can barely get them to go outside for a quick walk... our eyes grew with anticipation....Hubs ran out to the store immediately to purchase our life saver.    HA!  Little did we know that the coma-inducing drug has absolutely NO affect on Miss Chuggy.  NONE.  NADA.  :)  And so, for 10 days straight, we've been in a constant battle with this pup in all healing (and heeling) efforts.

My nerves are shot, and the hubs' has had plenty of those so called "opportunities" to be patient.  I'm thankful for a husband who, even when he's worn thin, is still so caring of our doggy.  For real, he all but tells the baby bedtime stories when she snoozes off at night.

And today, we are both extremely thankful that she gets her stitches removed!  No more flashlight head, Blakely girl!  I'll be very thankful to get her back to her old silly self.

*** Update- poor beansie popped one of her internal stitches.  She will undergo surgery again to fix the popped stitch.  Another 10 days for our family............ more opportunities for patience?  We are going to need your prayers.