[Mudpie]

Big hugs Jessica to you, Carter and DH. This is so hard for you - there are no visiting care nurses for dogs to relieve you - but Carter IS improving.

As I said in a previous post most of us would still be flat on our *sses after surgery like his.

This sounds really tough but I think giving it a week is too little time. I think Carter needs more like a month for you to really assess how he's going to be. Maybe even longer.

Is there anyone who can offer you and DH a bit of "time off" from Carter nursing duty? That might help everyone a whole lot.

Dagmar

[paperclippy]

We've got Carter into some male washable doggie diapers now which he seems to be doing well with. It's basically like a pouch you put a maxi pad in and wrap it around his belly. I'm pretty happy with it so far -- we were able to take the cone off of him and he hasn't tried to pull the diaper off, and there hasn't been any leakage. It's easy to take off when we go out for real pee and is containing the dripping for now. I'm still hopeful that he will recover his full bladder function but I'm feeling better now about our ability to handle it if he can't with the diapers. We will check with the surgeon tomorrow about discontinuing the medication the emergency vet gave him in case it is the cause of his continued dripping.

In other news his stomach seems to be handling the bland diet today pretty well. No more trembling which is great! On the other hand we left him inside and went for a brief (10 minute) walk and came back to him yelping and barking and trying to chew his way out of the play pen. Hopefully once he is mobile again and doesn't need to be in the pen he will be okay with being alone again (and the diapers will allow us to leave him alone).

[EZMONEY]

Continued prayers Jessica. Having had to crate one of my very active goldens for 2 months when she was a puppy, because of a leg/spine injury, I know how difficult and emotional it can be.

[Megan1982]

to Jessica, Carter, and DH. I'm sure a lot of Carter's whining and yelping is due to confusion and not understanding what's going on with his body.