I don't have much new information to report,... Hope continues to be more active and more playful, She's healing well, and still limping her way around the house to explore and follow her cat, Trillion,...
So, I was going back through some of the photos of Hope and wanted to post some pictures we took of how we did her dressing changes before her first surgery. With everything that happened that first week she was with us, I did not post these pictures and explain the dressings so I thought I might do that today.
These photos were taken the day before her first surgery, so you will still see the largest wound on her Left side and her neck wound before they were surgically closed.
First the old bandages were removed.
Then wounds are checked and cleaned if necessary.
We used a baby diaper over her dressings to collect drainage and excess honey, the the elastic part was cut out to prepare it.
We used Sugar on her wounds originally, to draw out drainage, and it has antiseptic properties. Afer doing some internet searching, and talking to a dog friend who is also a nurse, we discovered that Honey could also be used and we began using that directly on the wounds instead of the sugar, because it was easier to use. We applied a liberal ammount of honey directly to the wound or on the Telfa non-stick gauze pads and then covered the wounds with them. Hope liked to try and lick the honey, here she is supervising.
Enough gauze were applied to the wounds so they were all covered.
Then the diaper was placed over the gauze to help keep them in place and collect extra drainage.
Then the diaper was wrapped in VetWrap, or Coban to keep it in place and help protect it from scratching puppy feet.
All done, for 12 hours! The dressings are changed twice a day. After her surgery there was no need to use the diaper, so we now cover the one open wound with the honey gauze and then keep that in place with gauze wrap then the VetWrap. This method is much less bulky, which she appreciates as she becomes more mobile! The remaining open wound is healing so well and is now about 1/2 of it's original size, I believe it would eventually heal in by itself without surgical intervention, but it would take at least another month or two. So, her second surgery will be this coming weekend, to remove the sutures and repair that wound. I will take new photos later today to show how it's healing on it's own with just our dressing changes and antibiotis.