This morning, Pigeon was actively bleeding from his incisions. I decided to take him to my regular vet to get a new pair of eyes on the situation and perhaps a new path to follow. It turned out to be very beneficial.

The theory is that the sutures were acting like a tourniquet. Allowing blood to flow into the area, but not allowing it to flow back down impeding the circulation. Sutures (the remaining 6 of them) were removed.

No more procedures, no more e-cone, no more antibiotics, ointments, corticosteroids, powders nothing. This is a degloving wound and so we are now treating it with Shreiners Spray, Aloe Vera gel, and Vitamin E oil. It will take about 3 months before the “uglies” go away, but there is healthy granulated tissue coming in and some of the deep pockets on the sides of the wound are now filled up with healthy muscle and tissue- so it is just going to be watching it carefully. making sure he doesn’t get over-zealous in grooming his back leg area and monitoring his regular functions to be sure there is nothing amiss.

I had an epiphany on the way home. The reason that I was so distraught about this wound is looking at his leg and the skin underneath shoots me straight back to dealing with Mike’s leg for so many years. Despite all they tried to do to fix it and sometimes because of what they did made him worse, it just filled me with fear that I might lose Pigeon as well. I shared this with my vet and he assured me that although this wound in pretty darn ugly- it is not to the point where a leg will be amputated or a life taken. I was so relieved.

Tomorrow is Mike’s birthday. He would be 79 years old. Please just pray for me. You don’t have to ask anything of God except that He guides my way and I don’t push away or run from the grief. One of the vets told me about a book called Blessed Grief and I ordered it. It will be here tomorrow. It’s getting better each day, but there are still setbacks and tears when I least expect them to flow.