During the last month or so of Laika's battle with cancer, she was in need a lot of care for her tumor. It would sometimes bleed and sometimes ooze. Therefore, with both of us exercising extreme patience, we had to wrap her back twice a day to keep everything clean and covered.
The wrap consisted of a few non-stick gauze pads attached to panty-liners (a genius idea by the vet) and then wrapped in layers of cotton gauze and finally self-clinging bandages. We were doing really well until a few setbacks which required the use of a silver-based ointment to help heal the skin. But, we were up to the task and Laika was a perfect patient for the first few days.
One day, after returning from the vet, I noticed that the gauze from their wrap started to slip out. I didn't think it was a big deal, but as Laika walked around, it moved more and more, until it finally came out...at which point she grabbed it with her mouth and tried to eat it! Luckily, I was around to take it away. She was excited by the contents absorbed by the gauze, no doubt. So, I vowed to wrap it better in the future.
That night, I did what I thought was a great job applying the ointment and then wrapping her as already noted. Things seemed fine the next morning, until I unwrapped her to find the base non-stick pad missing! A frantic search ensued, which was silently observed by a bemused, if not slightly guilty-looking, Laika. Nothing was found, so I assumed the gauze was in the belly of the beast. I called-off work and drove to the store to get peroxide. Laika was not happy to get not one, but two, helpings of her least favorite post-mischief beverage, but I was worried about the gauze in her belly.
However, this time was to no avail. No fireworks, no vomit. Big Baby just sat shaking in the backyard with foamy drool forming at the corners of her mouth for the better part of an hour. I felt terrible the entire time. I didn't want to cause her anymore discomfort than she might already be feeling, but a stomach blockage would not help anything. After a while, I gave her a bit of water which she happily drank. The gauze was obviously not coming out. A call to the vet confirmed that waiting for it to exit via the backdoor was a viable option, especially given the fact that it was a non-stick pad. So, the waiting game began.
Being that I had recently moved, I decided to make the most of my day and go through a bunch of basement stuff to clean-up a bit. Laika watched with curiosity the entire time, as organizing was apparently a novel thing to witness me doing. In these efforts, I actually found Laika's file from when I took her in. As it turned out, she was actually only 11 years old and not 12, as I had been thinking. She took the exciting news with an indifferent tail wag, but it was cool to think she had just gotten younger!
Anyways, the next day the gauze made its return trip. The tall fence between my yard and my neighbors' house obscured any other humans from witnessing my elated fist-pump at the miracle of Laika's body passing the pad, but it was so emphatic that Laika was even excited! I learned my lesson to use the non-stick pads with adhesive, because the silver ointment was the slippery culprit in this whole episode.
Never a dull moment with the Wonder Pup. Which brings us to why she needed the silver ointment in the first place...
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