Home and On the Road to Recovery

Virga and Cirrus underwent surgery at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital on Thursday. We brought them in around 10:00 a.m. and met with our vet. She went over what exactly was going to happen with each glider. One change from what she had thought earlier was that they would not be spayed. Since  Dr. W. felt that these tumors were possibly hormonally driven spaying them would eliminate the hormones from the equation.  However, spaying is a fairly serious procedure for sugar gliders, and she felt the risk from that surgery was too high, and we agreed. Instead, they removed the mammary glands along with the tumors, and then performed a "pouch ablation" to minimize the potential for residual mammary tissue being left behind and for abnormal cell growth to reoccur. The pouch is more or less a flap of skin, so this was a much less traumatic procedure than spaying.  It left both of them with about a one inch incision that was closed with internal sutures and externally with tissue glue.

Surgery was scheduled for early afternoon.  Virga was first, and her surgery took about an hour. The two tumors had grown together and were hard to distinguish as separate masses. When her surgery was completed, Cirrus had her surgery, which lasted about 40 minutes.  Dr. W called about 4:00 p.m. to let us know both girls had made it through surgery just fine and were awake. However, they were going to keep them overnight in ICU so they could be given injectable pain meds and watched carefully during their waking hours.

Virga and Cirrus at home in their e-collars.

We had sent along e-collars and two new e-jackets with Virga and Cirrus. The e-jackets are a relatively new device that has been successfully used with gliders to keep them from self-mutilating. On Wednesday night I practiced getting Virga into her e-jacket, but it took three tries before I got it right. After surgery they tried to get Virga in her e-jacket, but she wiggled right out of it. Rather than stress her out they went with the e-collars. One of the e-collars we have attaches with snaps and works quite well most of the time.  They tried it on Cirrus and she had it off in two seconds. The second e-collar wouldn't stay on, so the vet and vet techs made two e-collars out of old x-ray film. Not fashionable, but very effective.  The ladies had a pretty good night and cuddled up in their hospital cage. They ate a little, and apparently were loved on by the ICU staff.

I picked them up at the hospital on Friday about 11:00 a.m. The two vet med students that had been working with Dr. W and with us the last few visits explained the care needed for Virga and Cirrus. The incision site on both was a little swollen, but that was to be expected.  Otherwise both gliders looked groggy, but good.. Dr. W went into a little more detail on the surgery. To her knowledge this particular procedure has not been done before on gliders for treatment of mammary carcinoma. She was not able to find much in the veterinary literature about mammary carcinoma in gliders and the vets she spoke had heard of it but did not have much direct experience with it. So, Virga and Cirrus may end up being pioneers in glider veterinary care.

For all they have gone through, Virga and Cirrus are doing remarkably well. They ate last night, starting off with an appetizer of a few mealworms. They were mildly active in their cage last night. One of the medications they are on includes a mild sedative, and we really don't want them to be too active. We have them a a small cage in our bedroom so we can hear them in case something is wrong. The are able to climb a bit, but that's about it. They seem to be even a little more active tonight, and their incision sites look very good. They are eating and drinking.  The definitely do not like their e-collars, but seem to be a little more tolerant of them today. On Monday we will  put them in the e-jackets, which will give them more freedom of movement and make it a little easier for them to eat.

Their follow-up appointment with Dr. W is in about seven days. By that time we should have the results of the histopathology of the tissue that was removed. They should also be just about ready to rejoin CB and Foehn and normal glider activities.