Rumble stayed in the hospital for nearly a week and I was ok with that. I was nervous to bring him home so soon. Post Op he had some trouble waking up from the anesthesia and that really worried me. They called me when he was out of surgery and I was excited. They called me at 8pm and he still hadn't woken up and that worried me. My student called me at 3am on Wednesday and he was more awake but not fully. The Dr. called at 8am Wednesday and said he was almost to the "drunk" phase of anesthesia and told me to not worry because sometimes an animal just reacts to anesthesia differently and it takes them a long time to wake up. Around 8pm, a full 24 hours post surgery, my student said Rumble was fully awake and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Tone of voice is very important to me. It always has been, even as a kid. My student at the time was male and had the worst tone of voice ever, especially over the phone. I told him I felt like a needy girlfriend because he wasn't calling me often enough, thus the 3am phone call. But, when he actually called, my heart nearly fell out of my chest because this sad, slow, monotone voice said, "I've called to talk to you about Rumble." Turns out he was just updating me on his status but at the time I thought he had passed and the 3am ME nearly broke down. I hate roller costers. My heart was pounding because it was 3am and I was receiving a phone call and it was my student from OSU on the phone sounding as if Rumble had died. I wanted to strangle him but instead I thanked him for the call and asked when he would be calling me again.
His vet explained to me that Rumble was just getting over the effects of the ketamine that was a part of the anesthesia. That is the only part of the anesthesia cocktail that can't be reversed with another drug; it has to be naturally secreted out and that takes awhile. She called him awake, just really really relaxed, and that doesn't sound too bad in my opinion. After the last two weeks I've had, I feel like I could have benefited from some ketamine ;) (j/k)
All this time, Rumble had been in the ICU because it is monitored 24 hours a day by students and the on call physician. The operating room is always cold so Rumble's temperature had dropped and they were having trouble raising it back up to the 101 degrees they were looking for. So he stayed in the ICU pretty much until the day he came home, and I preferred it that way.
Because of the high bilirubin count, Rumble had started to turn yellow with jaundice. But, after they gave him a new bile duct, his bilirubin count continued to go down and the white skin of ears ears immediately turned less yellow. Immediately after surgery, Rumble's bilirubin count went down from 3.4 to 3.1 and by the next day it was down to 1.1. Amazing how quickly that part of him came into balance. We still had a little way to go to get to 0.3 but we were on the fast track.
His surgery was on Tuesday morning and we brought him home Monday, April 11th. Don't worry too much if your little guy doesn't immediately wake up from anesthesia. And please be nice to your vet students, even when you want to strangle them.
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