Alia, you are doing very well with Leilah. The bond is growing stronger between the two of you. She now knows you are there to help her. All of my crossables are crossed for Leilah's speedy recovery!

Many hugs are sent your way!


Jen

Well kim fed her some and she eat some more. Each time we have fed her she is eating a couple syringes full. I fed her at 5, kim at 10 and I just fed her now at 1. I gave her her antibiotic and pain killer as well. The bandage on the tail fell off. I don't think she pulled it or anything because it wasn't nawed on, i just think it wasn't on good enough. So i put it higher up so it would hold better. The wound still looked good so i dont think she was able to reach it. I gave her her pain meds because she was crabbing when i touched it so hopefully those kick in. A few questions: How long does butrophenol normally last? Should I be putting neosporin on the wound or just leave it? The vet didn't say. And one more question. When I take off the ecollar in a couple days/weeks will she go grooming crazy? I ask this because she has been getting food around her chin and neck. I wipe it off but obviously it will still be a lil wet. So when I take it off is she going to spend the next hour cleaning herself?

You can put neosporin on it. As long as she can't lick it, you can use the kind with pain relief, which may help the pain meds last a little longer. If she can get to it, only use the regular kind.

Normally, the Butorphenol will last 4-6 hours, depending on how bad the pain is. You can redose after 4 hours, but not sooner.

And gliders are normally very clean and well groomed. Yes, she'll likely go crazy grooming for a couple of hours (watch close). You can help by cleaning her with a warm wet washcloth, and holding her on you until she's completely dry. Believe it or not, plain kleenex (not the kind with lotion or anything) will help her dry even faster if you rub her down with them, too.

Well leilah just ate again. I gave her some more of her pain killer and her last dose of antibiotic for today. She got to try some hawaiian delight, some blueberry yogurt, and carrots and her BML. She's been eating pretty good. I think she is going to get fat with all this eating lol. We have been feeding her every couple hours and she eats a lot. I have been giving her the powerade water too. So, all and all she is doing good! Would the stuff the vet gave her make her poops a lil loose?

Yes, you can expect to see some loose stools. Just make sure she is getting plenty of fluids. You could offer her a little piece of "oat meal" the regular kind (not the one minute).
I'm happy to hear that she is getting better...She probably is just taking all this attenetion in...sweet little girl.
Thank you for the update!

Well Leilah is doing good. Still feeding every 5 hours. Its soo cute to watch leilah and dolly when they get to play together. Dolly tried to climb into the ecollar tonight. It was soo funny! She misses her sister. She hasn't been playing or eating as much. I give her her mealworms and she doesn't flip out for them like usual. So I am going to give her a little extra TLC tomorrow. Poor girl. I had to wash leilah's bottom today. Her poops are soft enough to stick to her fur if she doesn't poop a certain way. So she had some poop stuck in her fur and i had to wipe it off with a wash cloth. I tried to wipe off her neck a little too. She spills a lot of the food i give her into her neck. Other than that she is doing good!

Awwww!!! You are right, Dolly misses her sister! Too bad you didn't have a chance to take a pic of her doing that!

I am glad Leilah is eating very well. As for the food getting stuck in the neck area underneath the ecollar, it isn't permanent, thankfully. Oh, what fun it would be, when the ecollar comes off, Leilah will have a washcloth bath! LOL!

Yes, please give Dolly some individual attention and some extra lovin'! She will bask in that!


Jen

Well just got done feeding leilah again. Everything is going good. It's been almost a week since she got the surgery done. I checked her tail on Sunday, it wasn't scabbed over yet, just kinda gooey (not in an infected way). So I put some neosporin on it and rewrapped it. Other than that I have gotten used to feeding her every 5 hours, it just seems normal anymore. She eats extremely well. Still eating at least 4 syringes full every 5 hours. Kim enjoys feeding her too and loves to hold her. She laughs about how she is going to get comfortable with her and once we take off the ecollar she will get bitten haha. I'll update if there are any changes!

I'm happy to hear she's doing so well!

Oh, Alia and Kim! Bless your hearts for being such good mommies!

I had to chuckle about the comment Kim made about getting very comfortable, only to get bitten when Leilah's ecollar comes off. I seriously doubt she will bite, as she will be so glad to be free of that ecollar! Kim might get a face hug, though! lol

Give both girls a kiss for me. I miss them.


Jen

I have a question. How do you guys feel about taking of the bandage. It has been 13 days since she had her surgery. I took off the bandage sunday and she hasn't done anything to it. I know she can't get to it. My question is that there is an area that is red. Not red like she has been biting it. I know for a fact she hasn't. I remember seeing this when I first bandaged her up. I think i notice it now because the protectant the vet had around it is black and its wearing off and now i can see it. I'm just way nervous about it healing. It should heal since she can't get to it right?!? The vet didn't mention anything about wrapping it up in the first place, so I i figure this has to be normal then. I know she is not in pain and moves around just fine. The only thing I can think of is the fact that the area needs air to heal. If it continues to be bandaged it will just stay wet and take longer to heal right?

As long as she can not get to it, I agree, that it needs air. I would leave it unbandaged.

ok thanks! I will keep it unwrapped!!

Ok so I have a question. I have been feeding leilah through a syringe still because she has her ecollar on still. The last couple days I have been getting a little bit on her nose when feeding her. Well this was just last night that I got a lil on her nose. She blew it out. I went to feed her earlier and noticed she was short of snorting out. Not a full blown sneeze just short of when you blow out of your nose. I was wondering if you guys thought this was because she got a lil BML in her nasal passages. After I started feeding her she stopped and I had her out for 20 some minutes and she didn't do it again. Just right when i woke her up. Any ideas? Think its my unsteady hand's fault? lol

Probably. (My hands aren't always the steadiest, either, lol) Make sure and clean her nose off if that happens so she doesn't get any in her sinus or breathed or worked down into her lungs that could develop into an infection later. With Binx and Riker I kept damp Q tips and damp tissues handy (Riker was a mess, lol). Riker is the one where I found out bathing a glider full body is much like trying to bathe a cat-if not for the collar I'd have had tooth punctures to go with all the scratches-which happened the first time I tried it without the collar, lol...but he was SO bad a washcloth just wouldn't cut it. Every feeding I'd clean the collar out with qtips and toothpicks (to scrape any dried stuff), and every 2-3 days he'd get a full body dunking (the meds at the time also gave him on/off diarrhea). That would get the stuff that wouldn't come out with the washcloth, and I didn't want irritating his skin because it stayed there too long.

If you ever do need to give her a bath, I used the bathroom sink (shallow) scrubbed down with cleanser and rinsed with hot water for at least 10 min so no residue...then fill it about 2-3" or so with water so when you put your WRIST in it it feels almost like it's not there at all-that's the proper temp-and would submerge him up to his neck to work the stuck gunk out of his fur-shallow enough to stand but not deep enough to drown if he got loose. Then I'd wrap him in a big pile of PLAIN kleenex (no lotions or antibacterial anything) and a towel I'd get ready beforehand-the tissues really help dry them much faster-and keep him in my jacket until he was completely dry. No soap (it will dry out their skin and make them itchy)..just plain water. It reallly helped make him feel better, for all he hated the bath, because he couldn't go more than 5 min without his collar before he'd be attacking his cloaca, but his need to groom in his brief times out for a neck rub seemed much less after a bath.

How is she healing up otherwise? Any redness or anything? What's the latest from the vet? (sorry, question barrage here, lol)-been wondering how she's doing in specifics-just my nature )

Leilah hasn't made the sounds anymore, so I'm fairly certain that was it. She is too bad with the syringe. Sometimes it goes around down by her neck, but overall her body is just unfluffy looking lol. I figure when i finally take off the ecollar i will give her a full bath (with a washcloth). She doesnt seem to mind when I use the washcloth method. I do it every couple days. Sometime I have to do it sooner if she gets poop stuck in her fur (yuck!). All and all her tail is looking much better. The vet has not called even once to check on her. I'm not planning on going back to them if i can avoid it! Her tail isn't red anymore, just looks like its healing. Its starting to scab up with the air its getting, so I am happy about that. Not much else going on. She eats well, always has a full belly! She loves her time out when she gets to run across the floor and get a body rub! Dolly is missing her but their cages are put together and every other night they get to play together (they normally just cuddle). I think Leilah will be such a sweetheart after all this. She crabs when we first enter the cage but as soon as she sees food coming its a whole different story lol!

Thanks for the help!!!

I'm so happy to hear that she's doing so well! You're such a great glider mom!

Awww thank you so much!!! That made me smile!!

I'm so glad she's doing better! Do you think it would be possible to take some photos of her for us, with or without bandage? I've never seen a glider with amputated tail and it seems we have such little information about health and injuries with photos to accompany it that it would be a good idea to keep a little database with glider injury photos. :3

Alia just informed me that Leilah has a scabbing on one shoulder and irritation with scabbing on the other shoulder. She was wondering if R-7 spray was a good substitute for collasate spray, as the R-7 spray is readily available and the collasate spray had to be ordered and might take up to two weeks to get here. Alia also wanted to know if she should remove the ecollar to prevent any further irritation to Leilah's shoulders, as Leilah wore the ecollar for about three weeks now. She just does not want Leilah to mess with her tail again.

Any advice would be much appreciated!


Jen

I would take it off a couple hours at a time under DIRECT supervision, and see how she does. The fact there's still redness has me a little concerned. Does she have any painkiller left? And is the scabbiness being caused by the collar? If so, what condition is the moleskin in? If she can't do without it yet...a new collar or replacing that padding might be in order. If she can go without messing with it 24 hours she probably won't, but she'll still want to keep a close eye at least every 2-3 hours (edited) after that to make sure, and catch any damage before it gets out of hand, until it's completely healed. Is she still on antibiotics? or are those done? (the redness is why I'm asking-there really shouldn't be any two weeks out)

And I don't know about the sprays. For the tail...or the scabbing? I've not used a spray so I don't have a clue on that. Can she reach what's on her shoulders?

Hey everyone. SO leilah's tail is still a little red in one area. I'm assuming there is some sort of glue or protectant on the tail because it has been black since she came home. But not black like dead skin. Just a black kind of protectant over it. The red area is where the protectant has worn off. The spray would be for her tail so she wouldnt get to it if the ecollar was off. It doesn't hurt her anymore, but does that mean she wouldn't try to play with it? She has been off antibiotics for awhile now. They were only for 7 days as with the pain killers. The shoulders are scabbed. I don't know if it is from her grabbing at the ecollar and scratching herself or from the actual ecollar. They are scabbed over so they are healing. SO I dont know what to do. Try taking it off? I'm afraid of being able to put it back on. I don't have another ecollar (Pix Trix was nice enough to send me this one) as the first one I made wouldn't stay. And I havn't been able to find the molefoam in the stores anywhere. Only mole skin which isnt thick enough.

Sorry Sabarika, I just saw that you had replied to the post. I have a few pictures of before and after that I will put up. I will have to find a way of doing. I had a picture of leilah's tail up on Photobucket and they took it down saying it was explicit lol. I'm guessing they thought it was something perveted or IDK. I had to laugh though lol. But, when I get home from work, I will work on posting some before and after photos.

Well Leilah is loving being free. As of now she hasn't touched her tail. I gave her a bath with a wash cloth. She loved it. Now she is sitting there eating a mealie. I'm hoping she will continue on like this because then I can leave the ecollar off right? If she doesn't touch the tail at all? Check on her every couple hours?

sounds good to me!

YAY!!! I am so glad to hear that Leilah is finally free of that ecollar! She has been through so much! So have you and Kim! Poor Dolly was without her sister all those weeks!

Has Leilah left her tail alone all night? I hope so!


Jen

Ok so we left Leilah out of her cone for the whole night. We took turns waking up every two hours to check on her. Tail looks the same. She had licked it earlier when I was out with her, but only for a second. I wonder if she didnt like the taste of the protectant they put on. She made a funny face and then continued cleaning the upper portions of her tail. So every time we woke up she was playing on her wheel. Before I went to sleep I switched her cage around so it was vertical. Hung up all her toys and put the wheel in there for her. I even heard some barking in the middle of the night. Not sure if it was dolly saying "hey give me my wheel back!!" or leilah saying "haha". You guys should have seen her face when i gave her a pouch. She ran straight for it! I think she missed that more than anything. Ohh and she looved eating some cherries and veggies. She went to town. Poor little girl. So if she left it alone all night is it safe to say she will continue? As long as no stress? I'm hoping, praying and keeping my fingers crossed! No more hand feeding!!

It really sounds like everything is going great! Isn't that an awesome feeling when you let them get back to normal? They're like, "Really, mom?? I can finally go back? Are you sure? Oh yea!!! This is great!" And it makes you so happy to see them so happy (and their family/friends when they're reunited!)

Well went and bought the collasate ointment. (The only vet to have any collasate products only had the ointment!) From what I understand it works the same. I'm hoping it works and she wont bother it (she licked off a lil of the protectant). It sure smells terrible, so I wouldnt want to lick it! *fingers crossed!*