Mousse after 2-weeks in ICU at UF Vet School We carried Mousse into the house and laid him on the living room sofa.  He had just spent 2 weeks in intensive care at the University of Florida vet school.  

All total, he had lost 35 pounds.  He weighed 80 pounds when he had the first surgery with my local vet and he was only 45 pounds when he finally came home from Gainesville.  In this photo, you can see his hip bones and the bed sore that opened up on his right hip.
A feeding tube was left in place for emergency use. Cleaning the open wounds was a daily routine.  My instructions were to keep the bed sores clean and dry until the team at the vet school could surgically close the wounds after a week back at home to gain some strength back.

The feeding tube had been left in place for that week back home just in case he had a set-back.  Thankfully, we never needed to use it.

Because he had gone so long without eating, we were to feed him a couple of spoons of food every 2 hours.  He couldn't keep down more than that at any one feeding.
Bed sore on his right hip. This is a closer look at the open sore on his right hip.  In spite of the staff's diligent efforts to keep turning him, these wounds opened up.  Mousse had no body fat left to cushion the skin.  This wound shows the muscle and bone.   The wounds would weep body serum just like it would do with a severe burn. 
Mousse showing off his hospital gown. Our solution as to how to keep those open sores clean and dry was to create this doggy hospital cover-up.  We cut the sleeves off of a t-shirt and pulled them up over each back leg.  Each sleeve was pinned to the back of the t-shirt to hold it in place.  

I lined each sleeve with self-sticking sanitary napkins.  These wicked away the weeping body fluids from the wounds while also providing a cushion for his boney body when he laid down.  The dark spot that appears in this photo along the side of the shirt is where the feeding tube was pulled through and pinned in place.  This was to keep it away from the floor when he laid down and to keep it as clean as possible.

I held my breath as Dr. Beaver looked at these open sores a week later, wondering if we had succeeded in providing good wound care.  Dr. Beaver was very pleased at how well the sores looked - if one could think of them as "looking good."
Mousse's Recovery

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