Gatsby's Foot Gremlin, the Sequel

It’s the Sequel, because when he was a pup of less than a year, Gatsby had warts in between his toes that I called his Toe Gremlins. I didn’t know they were doggy warts, I just knew he had some rapidly multiplying growths (clearly they’d been fed after midnight and exposed to plenty of light and water) of an unknown nature on his foot and I freaked the fuck out. They did eventually respond to some kind of Listerine-ish liquid from the vet, but it caused me severe anxiety for several weeks that summer.
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Anyway, if I thought we needed your well-wishes yesterday, we’ve multiplied the need today. You see, I’d noticed a small bare spot on the big lad’s foot about 2 months ago and figured he’d just scuffed it on something and the hair hadn’t grown back yet. I thought nothing of it until it started growing. On Monday, he went in for a minor surgery so the vet could get it out while there was still enough skin on the ankle to sew back together (and send to pathology to make sure it’s nothing nefarious).

Monday was actually pretty comical…..I took him in at 8, the vet came out to give him his knockout shot, and while she was in the back, he collapsed under me like a baby deer on ice. So she grabbed him a blanket and we flopped him over right in the waiting room (it’s a private practice, and there were no other animals scheduled to come in), where I laid with him until he fell asleep. Naturally, when you see your baby going under, it induces tears. Or at least, it does to me, since it brought back some memories of when I had to put Donky to sleep. So I was laying there crying and holding him, when Dr. Renee suggested I might go home for an hour or so and leave her in peace to do her job.

I did go home, if only to collect Jack so that I’d have some help getting this 150-pound beast into the car afterwards. I distinctly remember what a herculean task it was to get him in and out of the car after his neuter/gastropexy, and he was about 40 pounds lighter then. Can I dead lift 150 pounds? Yes. Can I do it easily when there’s a tangle of unruly limbs actively fighting you the entire time? No.

Gatsby’s head popped right up when I reentered the waiting room, but it was a prevarication, and he immediately fell right back to sleep. I would have let him sleep it off indefinitely if it’d been up to me, but Dr. Renee said we could work on actively waking him up. So we did, and maneuvered him like a giraffe on mushrooms into the car (it took all 3 of us….even on his best day, the kid has no ups, and on this day, he had no idea where his hindquarters even were let alone what they were doing), and when we got back home, he was snoring so soundly, I just left him out in the car with the doors open for another hour or so. Eventually, we reasoned that he needed to come inside, just in case the sedative wore off enough for him to be cognizant of other animals outside, but not enough to remember where his invisible fence border is. So with Jack pushing from one side and me pulling his bed from the other, we managed to get the drunken toddler into the house where I took full advantage of his loopiness to clean his ears and give him a mani/pedi.

All was going well, except that his bandaging kept/keeps sliding down. It’s about a 2” incision, with 6 or so stitches, and it’s right underneath where his ankle is, so even being wrapped above and below said ankle, everything slides down. His gauze, his adhesive tape, his surgical tape, his ace bandage, his multiple leg warmers…..it hadn’t been a huge deal until yesterday overnight, when he removed both of his leg warmers and took out half the stitches. I cleaned it up, put him back into his ace bandage and took him into the golf course with me, where I then realized (due to the blood he was traipsing around the clubhouse) that he’d broken a toenail on that same foot. Or maybe I did while I was trying to dress and rebandage his wound. At this point, he's not a fan of having his limbs and digits tinkered with anymore, so I might have snagged it during this morning’s wrestling match.

At any rate, since I can’t leave him unattended, I called in to the other golf course, where I usually spend Thursday afternoons/evenings, so I can continue to try and stymie his bleeding here, where he can stay corralled behind the counter. It’s a riveting and exotic life I lead.

I’ve got an antiseptic/antibiotic/sugar paste waiting at home to pack onto the gash (as advised by the vet), but send the healing vibes to my convalescing boy, please.