The adventure of Sadie's surgery and the first night home...plus sad Lucy

Well on Monday we got about 5 inches of snow at our house which was then followed by freezing rain and ice. We let Sadie and Lucy play in the snow and they had a lot of fun. We also took Lucy to my in laws house when we went to sled, while we were there we played on their trampoline and Lucy had fun playing with her "uncle" Luke. That night she was a little stiff but we were not very concerned. She seemed to get better the next few days.
Wednesday night I got a bag ready to take to the animal hospital for Sadie's surgery on Thursday, I packed two of her blankets and the new racoon toy we bought for her. When we woke up early Thursday I wanted to cry, Lucy was now holding up HER back left leg and not using it at all! I just couldn't believe that this could happen, a little fun in the snow and now it looked like she may have a torn cruciate too! Well we decided to give it a few days to see if she got better or worse and we put Lucy in her crate with breakfast and left Sgt. Pepper out in the living room with his breakfast and took off with Sadie to the animal hospital in Elgin. We checked her in and gave the vet tech Sadie's bag of blankets and toy gave her a kiss and left. It was hard for me to leave her and I almost cried again, but was sure they would take good care of my girl. We both went off to work and I thought about Sadie all day.
During my lunch break they called to let me know Sadie was doing fine that they were running pre op blood work on her and had her IV in, but that an emergency C-section had come in and Sadie would have to wait until that was taken care of. When I was on my way home from work the Doctor called and told me that Sadie was doing great and that the knee definately needed to be taken care of, but that other than the torn cruciate and a small tear to her meniscus she was in great shape. There was no sign of harm to the bones in her knee joint. He told me she was on a drip for pain and would be all night and that she was sleeping and in no pain. They would call me in the morning to let me know when to come pick her up.
Friday morning I woke up very very sick. I thought I had already had this stomach bug on Wednesday when Stephen did and we both stayed home form work. Well apparently this bug was just giving me a preview on Wednesday and showed up full force on Friday! I was miserable and unsure if I would be able to pick Sadie up from the hospital. Well through sheer force of will I managed to get her home that afternoon and then we both took a nap.

I was awakened from my nap by Sadie crying/whining from her crate. It broke my heart. I took her potty outside (made difficult by the still present ice) and gave her some food and water. Her pain medicine's were prescribed for twice a day but I could tell she was still in pain. So I called the vet and they said I could give one of them to her every 4 hours. I gave her the medicine and then let her lay on the couch while I sat next to her so she could have the cone off. She soon was sleeping peacefully. When Stephen came home he helped me care for Sadie and our other two dogs. We gave Sadie all her medicine (after some struggle, she is quite sneaky with pills!) and put the cone back on her and put her in the crate around 10pm. Well we were woken up at 1am and took her potty and went back to bed. At 2 am she woke us up again crying so we gave her more pain medicine and went back to bed. At 5 am we woke up again and Stephen decided to put her on the couch and sit by her so I could sleep. Then a few hours later we switched. It was a VERY long night!! Today we called the vet to see if we could get a sedative to allow her to sleep in the cone, as we were now convinced that the cone scared her SO much that she was crying and panting excessively. Stephen is out getting the medicine now and we are praying it works so we can ALL get some sleep tonight!