It's been 2 days since the surgery and Skye is doing much better than we expected.
She eats and drinks well. Actually she has a big appetite which is most probably caused in part by the trazodone and the fact she didn't eat much the last 2 weeks. This makes it very easy to medicate her :)
She goes to the bathroom fine although the fact we shrunk her backyard to avoid zoomies and squirrels chases has disturbed her a bit. Since her rescue 5 years ago, Skye has chosen a corner of the yard as her bathroom and never did her business somewhere else!
She hasn't licked her scar much so far. Since she can't wear a collar/cone of any kind, we are keeping her mildly sedated and we are closely supervising her including at night when we take turns sleeping on the sofa. I think it's because her belly is sore and she can't really lift her back legs to reach it. It's actually hard for her to go down the step to the backyard. Today, she wanted to play with a toy and did a play bow with it, she stopped immediately as that stretched her belly.
She also seems to have completely forgiven us. She still trusts us, wants to be in the same room we are, comes for comfort and butt scratches, and begs for food. She is so resilient!
We, the humans, are also recovering from the ordeal. Yesterday, we were completely exhausted and took it very easy. Today we are doing much better. We are extremely relieved of the outcome and quite proud of our accomplishment.
Thinking back, we are amazed how Skye behaved at the vet. She never showed any sign of aggression even during the extremely stressful phase of sedation out of her crate. I already knew she had a strong bite inhibition, but with all the drugs she had in her system at that time, it could have been different. She is really an amazing girl!
Also I want to say that we had a wonderful vet team. First our regular vet who diagnosed Skye remotely, and referred us to this wonderful surgeon and nurse team. The veterinarian clinic was small and didn't look like much from the outside, but the staff was top notch: competent, caring, and very accommodating to our special needs.