Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Stones Have Gotta Go

Medical problems in special areas seem to run through my household.  This time it affected my poor baby boy.  He is eight.  He is a dog.  His name is Dominic.  You might remember his sweet face from blogs such as Tricknee, The Walking Dead Took Over My Life and just about every other blog I have written.  He is a little bit of a ham.  He loves dressing up and loves to have his picture taken.  That works out really well since I love dressing him up and taking his pictures.  But he will not be dressed up in this blog.  I think he has been tortured enough.

Dominic

It all started when we adopted him.  He was peeing blood.  The vet said it was a UTI.  We gave him an antibiotic and it went away.  This happened four or five times over the course of two years.  Our vet did an x-ray because this is not normal.  My poor baby boy had stones in his bladder.  (Let me note here that I don't know how parents do it.  I was freaking out and my baby was just a dog.)  The vet said he would need surgery.  SURGERY!  How did my poor baby go from a UTI to having surgery?  I think the worse part is that he didn't even know what was about to happen to him.  No idea and I couldn't communicate that with him.

The morning of the surgery, I got up early to take him to the vet.  He was excited to take a car ride.  I brought his blanket along with him and he curled up in it on the front seat.  It was early (8:00 am.  That is early when you are unemployed.) and he wanted to sleep on our trip.  I turned the heated seat on for him.  He napped the whole way to the vet.  When we got to the vet, he suddenly realized where he was.  All four brakes were applied and he wouldn't move.  Luckily, he only weighs about 13 pounds so I just picked him up and carried him inside.  Once we got inside, one of the vet technicians came to greet us.  Dominic was so excited to have someone else to pet him.  He ran to her and she took him away.  Glad to see I am the only one who is sad about what is going on.  He seemed so happy.  What a fool.

Later that afternoon, I went back to the vet to get him.  His surgery went really well.  They said that they scooped out all his stones.  One stone was on the way to the urethra and one was actually lodged in the urethra.  The vet explained to me that Italian Greyhounds (that's the breed we have) have bones in their penises (giggle, giggle he said penis.  I am twelve.) called an os penis.  I actually Googled "Italian greyhound penis bone" to confirm that I had the right name for it.  Did you  know that if you Google "penis" it brings back results with the word "dick" in it.  How would you like to be the person at Google who has to add all the AKA words in for words like penis.  (Giggle, giggle!)

But I digress.  The moral of the story is that not only did the cut into his bladder but they had to slice his urethra to get the stone out.  They stitched his urethra back together and then glued him closed everywhere else.  The vet said that I would have to watch all the incisions for obvious reasons like making sure there was no infection.  But he also told me to watch and make sure that the pee was coming out of the right place.  He said it was possible that if everything wasn't "glued" properly that pee could ooze out of his urethra (not at the end) and then out of his incision.  Umm, gross.  Love is watching your dog pee, every time for days to make sure he isn't peeing out of the wrong places.

When I got him back from the vet, he looked pretty sad.  I cuddled him, kissed him, then threw him in the back of the car and drove him home.  He spent the next three days sleeping and looking pathetic.  Today is day three after the surgery.  He is slowly getting back to his old, ornery ways.  He is still sleeping a lot and looking pretty sad but he is moving around well.  In a couple more days, he will be back to normal.

Stop reading here if you are sensitive or easily grossed out.  TRUST ME.  You don't want to see the pictures below.

But as far as Dominic is concerned, he spent a lot of time doing the below and getting yelled at.
Do I really need to put a caption on this?
 
The next thing he knows, he is coming home from the vet looking like this.
Yes, that is major bruising in what was his manhood area. 
Trust me, this breaks my heart too.
 I think without any doubt, he has learned his lesson about licking his private area.  I don't think he will be doing that for a while.  Mostly because it is so bruised.

Please don't call dog services.  We didn't schedule the surgery because he licks his manhood like its his job.  Surgery was not punishment. Surgery was to heal his bladder stones.

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