3/4/06 -Thank you all, even though I had written that I felt it was going to require another surgery ... it was still a blow. I held hope that I was wrong. Keep the ideas coming for I'll present them all to my vet. Any form of feather removal will have to wait until after this surgery I believe. I think she will address any feathers under the skin that may appear to be an imminent problem but the overall procedure will wait for the area that will be operated on will need to be addressed also. I don't care if he has to be as naked as a roasting chicken as long as we can get him healthy, the guy actually likes wearing his sweaters and makes cozy beak noises when he sees it.
I was exhausted yesterday for I only got 2 hrs sleep the night before and the 4 hr trip whipped my butt. I should of said in my earlier update that my vet WAS pleased that it was as small as it was and that it is on the OPPOSITE side that he had been having problems. Before the problem area was from the breastbone right, now this is on the left. The right side there is no more skin to work w/ but the left side does have enough to pull this small incision closed but she did say TG it wasn't much bigger. That's why instead of waiting for him to recover more we are going to go ahead and proceed, for fear of it getting too large.
My fear is that so far every time Bo has been opened up the problem has always presented bigger than originally thought so I'm REALLY praying hard that this is not the case this time. My vet is thinking it's not going to be but his track record has me worried.
I'm feeling like crap having to put him through this again but my vet pointed out to me that he was doing much worse to himself for a long time w/o anesthesia and w/o sterile surroundings so try not to look at it as being any worse than what he was doing to himself. I suppose it's true but the difference is it was what HE was doing to himself, not what I was doing to him.