Medication To The Rescue - Thanksgiving Style

We have finally turned a corner. You may remember from my last post (and my lack of posts) that our precious Chihuahua, Gypsy, had surgery to remove 15 stones from her bladder back on the 17th. After a few days we figured out that she needed to be taken out every hour to hour and 15 minutes. Even at that rate she was still leaking urine multiple times a day. It was like she didn't even know she was doing it. We worked so hard to keep her dry and clean but it was an impossible task. Working around the clock we got very little sleep and when we did sleep it was nothing more than naps. I was doing laundry almost constantly.

Who me? No, I would never cause that much trouble.

It was a nightmare. Hubby and I were both in terrible shape.

When we took her in on the 24th to get her stitches out we expressed our desperation over the complete lack of improvement in her ability to hold her urine and the impact it was having on us. She was bouncing back wonderfully in all other areas but this one - this one critical area. The doc mercifully gave us a prescription for a sphincter tightening medication to help her hold her urine better until it could heal itself.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah - She hasn't leaked since!!!! We've spent this week slowly stretching the length of time between our visits outside - right now we are at 4.5 hours. Honestly, I don't know how long she'll be able to hold it but if we can get to 8 hours I'll be one happy camper. Yesterday we even dismantled our living room campsite and returned to our normal sleeping arrangements. Sure I still had to get up in the middle of the night to take her outside but I only had to do this once so that's a huge improvement.

Maybe if you pet my belly, you will feel better.
I know I will.

Life is not yet back to normal and it will still be a couple months before we know for sure if her sphincter will regain full function but I'm very encouraged at the progress we've seen this week. If not for this medication I wouldn't have been able to go to Thanksgiving dinner and neither of us would be getting 4 hours of sleep at a time.

No doubt, it will take my body and mind a while to recover from this madness. I'm just so thankful the worst of it is over and our beloved fur baby is again charming us.