Surgery

~A still drugged up Georgia after surgery, staring at the corner of the wall for 5 minutes, I couldn’t help but laugh!~

In the history of Georgia post I mentioned her most recent medical event which was the oral surgery she had in November of 2010. This was something that took us by surprise. We went in for her yearly checkup and when the vet tech was checking out her teeth she noticed a problem. She showed me that one of her top larger teeth towards the back of her mouth was split up the side, all the way up the side. She said this was a problem and would have the vet look at it more closely when he came in the room. The vet said that a nerve was exposed and that is was extremely painful for her. He felt strongly enough about the level of pain to give her an injection for the pain before we left along with sending us home with some pain meds.

Then he told me this could turn into something very serious and oral surgery would be needed soon. At this point I feared for Georgia and my wallet! The tooth that was broken was a three rooted tooth that extended into her facial cavity. The tooth was not infected yet, but was on its way to becoming infected. If it became infected and got into her facial bones it could cause her face to collapse, resulting in a very painful surgery that could cost up to $5,000.00 or death. So, it was a very easy decision to schedule the oral surgery to cut out the tooth.

He sent us home with pain pills (imagine if the nerve of one of your teeth was exposed?) and with antibiotics to start her on prior to the surgery. The surgery was about a week later. I couldn’t give her any food past 6:00pm the prior evening and no breakfast before surgery. This was hard since she knows her normal feeding times. I dropped her off at 6:15 in the morning before going to work. I had to go with her in the back and put her in one of the kennels. It was very hard for me. I had to pick all 40 lbs of her up and put her in, she wasn’t going willingly. It killed me to walk out of that room and leave her. I shed a little tear when I got in the car. The vet tech called me early afternoon to let me know that the surgery was done and she did very well. I picked Georgia up after work and she was still a little out of it, but was totally fine by the next day. She was such a good patient in fact that the receptionist followed me out in the parking lot to tell me, “You have such a good girl!” How sweet!

We felt so badly that she had been in this kind of pain for who knows how long and we had no idea. She never gave any indication that anything was wrong. Having her go through a surgery was stressful, but looking back it couldn’t have gone any smoother and was MUCH, MUCH cheaper than a painful $5,000.00 surgery that could have been required if it had gotten infected and the infection spread. The moral of the story is always take your pet and yourself to the vet or doctor for a yearly checkup, so things can hopefully be found in the early stages like in Georgia’s case.

Have a good weekend & stay warm! Spring?!? Where are you?!