Post Stitches

Two weeks post op

Mack the Diggie dog is different.  Not sure what it is that makes him "different" but he is. Of course the obvious difference is in the way he looks which post surgery is improving. I'm not really sure that he will "look" the same to us, despite what the surgeon said. He said no one would know once the hair grew out, but the way the scar runs, it is unlikely that hair will grow from that area and over it, so he will always have a pretty noticeable scar running under his eye, down his cheek and to his nose.  In some ways he's very much the same, loves to eat, runs for food and can't wait to get his treats, which are all blessings beyond words. Sometimes he has his moments of excitement and the wiggling tail wagging, and that brings back my memories of the happy and excited dog Mack was. But there are times when I look into his eyes and see a different dog.  He is not as "expressive" if that is possible.  We have to remember it's only been two weeks post surgery so part of this new Diggie Dog Mack behavior has something to do with that. We must also consider that without his hearing there is the lack of oral communication and a lack of aural stimulation that he used to get from our interactions. He doesn't hear what we are saying, so many times it's a blank stare that makes us feel as if he isn't the same dog.  I can't imagine not hearing the sounds in the house or our voices and trying to figure out what it is we want him to do. We use hand gestures and he pretty much gets what we want, follow us, go outside, come eat, go there. But when we speak, nothing happens. There's no connection made. Sometimes we think he can hear us but we're fooled by his ability to "understand" the visual cues that we aren't even aware of using. He's a very smart dog, using the one ability that he was always good at, which is watching and anticipating what we do, not necessarily what we say.
Mack the Diggie dog is different in that he doesn't seem to respond to us in the same way.  The most telling part of his being different is that when we go to bed, he doesn't look to snuggle with me, or to lie next to me, he lays down with the cover over him, and stays there the entire night. He rarely moves from that original spot and from there he will wake up in the morning in relatively the same place he fell asleep. That is totally not like the original Diggie Dog we took to the hospital on the 11th of December. He would snuggle with me no matter what was going on, stay there the entire night and be by someone's side in the morning. It was his habit and his ritual and that is different. Maybe we shouldn't consider how different he is as much as how much the same he is or maybe that is part of the grieving process that we go through whenever we consider what we did to give him a chance. We had to do something that was drastic by some people's standards and we cut out a jaw bone that was considered a massive surgical procedure for a small dog like him. We disfigured him and changed his physical look to give him a second chance at survival, so we have to grieve a part of him that will be forever changed.  Add in the hearing loss and we grieve more because he can't hear our voices or the sounds around him that he used to love, like the barking of the dog next door, the birds chirping in the trees, the cat's meow from next door or the ringing of the door bell that brought new people to his world.  Instead he is left with a silence that will forever be a part of his life, the communication we most relied on when we spoke words of love and excitement, instead I have resorted to clapping my hands to give him the sign of joy or happiness at seeing his face, but I'm never sure if he really understands that meaning behind it. If I could find a gesture that translated love and he knew it for that, I would use it every day, but who knew I would not be able to rely on sound to give that to him.  A deaf dog relies on facial expressions and other cues, but love does not come into play if you can't sweet talk him and whisper in his ear that you love him. I used to do that to him all the time, and I think he knew what it meant...now I'm left with  kissing him on his head or petting him and hugging him to me to let him know.  It is a strange new world with this new Diggie Dog, but I pray as time goes by we see a glimpse of the old Diggie Dog that reinforces to us that we did the right thing. That is the heartbreak of it all, did we do the right thing?
Time will tell, that is the only thing that is the same.