Day 6 and 7: Sleep Is Good

So I'm a day behind in updating because I opted last night to attempt sleep early, rather than write. There is a good explanation, I promise.

Cosita's incision one week after the surgery

Since Cosita got home, the night has been our enemy. She just seems to feel more pain when we all go to bed. Wednesday night was the worst night so far. I started her off in her crate, after giving her pain meds, and about 2 minutes later, the whining started. I moved down to the floor with my pillow, with my arm in the crate. She fell asleep. I fell asleep. 45 minutes later, I woke up to whining again. I rubbed her back, talked to her, and 20 minutes later she was asleep again. I fell asleep. Shortly thereafter she woke up whining again. I rubbed her back, talked to her, and yeah. . . you get the pattern. Sometime in the middle of the night I took her outside, thinking she needed to go to the bathroom. She didn't, or she wouldn't, I'm not sure which. At around 3:30, knowing I had to teach school in a few hours, I gave her the pain meds 1/2 an hour early, hauled my pillow and blanket into the living room, and crashed on the floor. The whining rose to a glass shattering pitch and volume, and the next thing I knew, she had three-legged it out of her crate and down the hall to join me. The cycle started again, without me falling asleep anymore, until finally around 4:30 I remembered the earplugs. Whoever invented those I swear deserves a medal.

Because I was in the living room, I didn't hear my alarm go off and had 35 minutes to shower, dress, eat, med and feed dogs, and get out the door. Needless to say, the day didn't get much better. Dr. Bagley called to see how she was doing, and I explained the challenges we were having. He prescribed an anti-itch spray called Genesis and told me that we'd get through this.

I'm not sure if she's whining so much because of pain, because she knows I'll come running, because she's itchy, because her stomach hurts from all of those pain meds, because she's just sick of the whole thing or what. I just want to figure it out and help her.

Last night my very dog-savvy friend came over to see her. After listening to our 5 days of no sleep sob story. . . by that time both Cosita and I were sobbing. . . she had a few suggestions. First, she suggested that I try putting the crate on the bed. She also suggested a heating pad for the sore leg, and made me promise that if I still hadn't slept by 2:30, that I'd go downstairs to the guest room where I couldn't hear her, and just let her cry, because being this tired and worn out, I'm not able to help Cosita or myself either. She had a point.

After she left, I hauled Cosita and the crate up on the bed, stuck my arm inside, inserted the ear plugs, and started petting her. She fell asleep pretty quickly, and so did I. I was even able to extract my arm from the crate and turn over! (simple pleasures I guess) She only woke me up a few times during the night with whining, and fell asleep again much faster than the night before. I only had to get up once to get her meds.

Our new sleeping arrangement

Yay! I feel like a whole new woman, and Cosita seemed a lot more relaxed this morning as well. It's amazing what a difference a night's sleep makes.

Improvements: She's doing a lot more sitting up for me to pet her belly. We also took her outside yesterday and instead of throwing herself on the ground making herself as flat as possible, she layed with her head up, sniffing the air and listening.

The canned food is working well, and she's drinking a little water when offered, but I sure wish she'd go to the bathroom more often.