Our Poor Sweet Girl

Last year after my brother in law passed away we took in his two huskies.  They were mother and son and had always been together.  In December we lost Petie, the son.  It was so sudden and sad.  He was only five years old.  A couple of weeks later we noticed that Skylar had a lump on her throat.  We immediately took her to the vet.  They thought that she may have had a fight with a wild animal.  We did not see or hear anything and don't know what happened.  They lanced the abscess and sent her home with some antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory.  She responded well and we thought she was on her way to being healthy. On Sunday we noticed the lump was back.  The weather here is dreadful and the vet is not close by so we waited to see how she would do.  On Tuesday, it was red and she had irritated it by rubbing it vigorously on the rug. I called the vet and we had to wait until Thursday to take her in due to the ice storm heading our way.

We took her to the vet Thursday and she needed surgery to clean out the abscess.  It breaks my heart to see her right now.

She is wearing the cone of shame (from Up, which I loved).

 We had to do some furniture moving so she can make it by things without getting stuck.  This collar is huge.

The next picture is not for the faint of heart.  She currently has a drain in until Monday.  I wanted to heave when I picked her up at the vet.

This is not even half as bad as it was when we picked her up.  We do warm compresses four times a day and I have been trying to clean up all the blood that was in her fur.  She was covered in it.  It was awful.  I am hoping that once the sutures are removed next Friday she will no longer have any trouble with this area.  She is usually so happy and loves to play.  She spends a great part of the day chasing her toys around the house but she isn't able to with the cone.  Playing in the snow is another favorite but the cone gets caught in everything. The snow is frozen solid.  She is not enjoying this.  We are looking forward to having her play and run again.