A tale of the shattered toe

A post by the momma:

 

Before I get into the details of Corbin's surgery, I'd like to send out a huge Thank You to everyone for providing support, prayers and experience these past few weeks.  Corbin has sure sent us on a medical roller coaster the past few years, and the support of all his friends has been a huge help for all of us.

 

Corb is resting well.

 

As par for the Corbin course, ripping a toe nail out meant a long road to toe amputation.  That road consisted of many antibiotics, an x-ray and culture to confirm we were treating the correct infection.  Just when we thought we had things under control... Corbin started limping last week and his toe began to grow larger... and larger, and larger.  He was in so much pain, we knew we didn't have any other choice than to remove the toe.  It was a risk, since we were thinking it was some sort of vicious, resistant infection... and if the infection had spread to his foot, we would be in quite a bit of trouble.  Dr. Mike fit Corbin in the next day for his surgery.  

 

 

Corbin's heart condition always makes putting him under for surgery concerning.  There wasn't an issue last year when he had his tail amputations, but this time, his heart was a bit unsteady.  He had lots of people watching to make sure it was safe for them to continue with the surgery - but Corbin sure doesn't make things easy!  His heart was stable enough, so they continued with the surgery.  It took a bit longer than planned, but we successful. 

 

Toe x-ray

 

Dr. Mike took Corbin's toe to radiation and x-rayed it.  What he found was that the last bone in Corbin's toe was completely shattered.  I can't imagine how much pain he must have been in.  We're not sure when it shattered or why it shattered.  His culture came back today negative for any infections - which doesn't necessary mean it wasn't originally caused by infection, but thankfully, any infection seems to be cleared out.  Corbin will continue antibiotics, just to be sure. 

 

Beds + Sun Puddles = Happy Corbin

 

His toe was sent out for biopsy and we're still waiting on the results of that.  I will be most relieved if we could rule out bone cancer and cough this break up to something bizarre or infection.  We have a follow up appointment tomorrow to change the bandage and to see how he is healing.  Corbin is already on 5mg of Prednisone once a day, which will help with any inflammation.  We added a nerve blocker to his pill box to help with the pain a bit, but no pain meds.  Corbin shouldn't be using his foot too much, and our fear if we load him with pain meds, he'll overuse his foot and cause the stitches to rip.  He's dealing pretty well and I don't feel he's in a lot of pain overall.  He's also been good about being on the lazy side and snoozing on the couch.

 

At least he looks good!

 

Those of you who have been around for the past year will remember our horrible time keeping Corbin away from his tail after his amputation surgeries.  The second surgery was needed because he broke free of his restraints and ripped his tail open twice, even on tranquillizers, and pain meds.  With his heart being a bit unsteady when they put him under this time, we decided not to use tranquillizers.  So, Corbin is in his neck brace, sweatshirt and boots.  We had him in a basket muzzle also, because we were afraid he could still reach his foot... but after a day of that, we stopped.  He hated it and he really can't reach his foot, nor does he try.  Hopefully that doesn't bite me in the ass later on!

 

But, all and all, everything went rather well.  I'm glad we decided to remove the toe because a break like that would have never healed.  Hopefully we'll have more news to report soon about the biopsy results.  Thanks to all of you for sticking with us and loving my big brown Corbee Doo!