Almost There

June 15 is the unofficial "all healed" date, if there is such a thing, so we're closing in on that. Theoretically, Ginger isn't supposed to be off the leash until then though I have certainly let her in the yard (which is small) unsupervised. She also did escape once before school, but with the kids loaded in the car and me pulling out, she came back in a hurry.
Her left leg juts out at a funny angle, and she is woefully out of shape compared to before the accident but overall appears to be healing well. I miss her energy and it makes me nervous when she does things differently--like today, when she didn't even bother getting up from her spot on the rug when I came in the door. I took so many of those things for granted, and while I'm thrilled that she doesn't make a humongous effort to get outside every single time the screen door is touched, I worry she's losing her doggy mojo. I hope she has a long and happy adulthood; I could definitely get used to her just curled up at my feet on the ride to the mountains, as she did this weekend, instead of her hyper attempts to jump around the car, and I love seeing her settled on the porch, watching the birds at the feeders with me. So I'm hoping today's lethargy is post-mountains sadness and exhaustion and not anything more serious.
I also wish we had done more of the physical therapy suggestions with her. The leg still seems stiff but after the pins and plates perhaps it was naive to hope for anything else. And in probably unrelated news, her hair is just falling out in tufts. Very strange.

Two Months Out

This week, I'm finally starting to feel like we have Ginger back. While she is still technically supposed to be restricted, we have been letting her out back (especially on these nice sunny days) though still walking her for the most part. But I really felt like when I looked at her, her eyes were droopier and she was still lacking some of the sparkle that we loved and that drove us crazy. She just seemed sadder, or older, or something.

But, enough time passed, or enough healing happened, or something, that this week, she started reviving herself a bit. She completely chewed apart her little soccer ball. She has wanted to do the wild running back and forth and rolling on the carpet games with the kids again. Before she eviscerated the soccer ball, she made it clear she really wanted to play the old game where we would stand at the top of the steps and I'd throw it down for her to retrieve. Even though we live in a split level, that seemed a bridge too far for a dog who is supposed to be on restricted stair climbing. She rolls over to expose her belly more, and is desperate to play tug-o-war, which she showed no interest in even two weeks ago (but alas is still on the "no" list).

She still favors the leg, and lies down in a new way, and tries to avoid sitting if she can possibly help it. She also still collapses in to "down" positions that were not her "old" normal and are a little pathetic, really--but if you didn't know her before, maybe you wouldn't think so. But she will let us pet the affected leg now, and when we took her on a jog around the track with the kids, she was deliriously happy for hours, giving us her happy dog grin and panting away like the old girl we knew.

I had been really afraid that the operation had rushed our dog prematurely in to old age, but now I am hopeful that she will recover to pretty close to where she was. Fingers crossed!

After the Checkup

Last week was Ginger's checkup for the TPLO surgery. They took her back for some xrays, which I saw on the computer. She has at least four large screws in her leg...ow. The doctor said she had a particularly steep angle and so was a little harder than most to do. We were pleased that despite her non-compliance (and ours) she was healing well. Her fur is growing back (we can't even see her freckles anymore) and she is getting back to her athletic self. It will be another two months before she can do anything dramatic though. For now, she can have 15 minute walks and can go up and down steps again. It's a mitzvah!

The Steps to Recovery or Relapse

Argh. We were trying to get the family ready and out of the house, and the dog tried to take the steps, and re-injured her leg. So we did the only thing we could do; got her more Deramaxx in cheese, crated her up, and hoped it's not too bad. She's still limping way more than she was but at least she's putting some weight on the paw now. SO so frustrating.

Unrelated?

Last night, the dog opened the gate, went upstairs to the bathroom where my husband was finishing bathing the kids, and let fly all over the floor. She has gone far longer than that without wetting in the house so it was a huge surprise. We have noticed since then that she is drinking a lot more water than usual. I'm a little concerned as she is off all meds at this point and has been for a few days (she didn't seem to miss the Deramaxx so we're only giving it sporadically). But she is gulping down the water every chance she has and her bowl is dry several times a day. We're still not supposed to be walking her more than 3 times/day, and if she's drinking so much that she can't hold it, that's a problem.

Marching Along

The dog has learned to open the baby gates. I am working on this mentally and am having a hard time working with it. She is eager to scramble up and down the steps and to be a part of the family again. I am eager for her not to need a repeat of her surgery, but also to have her not hate me. This is a continuing struggle. The plan is to move the crate downstairs this weekend (after, ahem, we take down the Christmas tree) so that there won't be quite as much up-and-down for her. When she's in our bedroom, she's usually pretty calm.

When she doesn't get her Deramaxx (which I sometimes forget as she is doing so well), you can tell. She is stiffer and less happy.

The fur is starting to grow in, too, but you can tell it will be a while. And the leg looks like it is atrophying to me, though really, it's hard to tell what would look normal under all that fur.

Meanwhile, she's caught on to the idea that the "long" walks are around the block, and while she will gaze wistfully at the extra street or the playing field, she really doesn't give much hassle to the block-only walk anymore.

Update 4

Ginger's stitches came out today. That did not go well. She had no interest in entering the vet's, kept trying to run from the room, and needed two techs and me to hold her while the stitches were removed.
Her excitement level at being rid of the e-collar, though, is immeasurable.
She is hard to keep still at this point. She would really like to resume all normal activity. This is starting to be a problem.

Third Update

So hey, the doctor's office returned my call (from last week!) today. She is one week out from surgery so I suspect it was a courtesy call anyway. They asked about the indoor pooping and suggested if she goes back on the Acepro to take it down to a quarter pill (from a half). Not much going on digestively right now, but since we finished the canned food, she's been miffed to be back on dry, so there might not be much in there to move on. They approved of the fabric collar (though she is figuring out how to get around it). They were surprised though not stunned to hear that the incision was so healed; the doctor who did the surgery is pretty particular, apparently, which I'd believe from the brief consultation we had. (Her wound is so healed, I was absent-mindedly patting her last night, and couldn't figure out what was spiky...and it was the stitches! She was letting me pet her on the stitches.)

Tonight will be her last of the second antibiotic (amoxicillin). The first can have a binding quality so we'll see if things pick up in that department again now that all the gi affecting drugs are being eliminated. And--cue the angels! I can either change the Tramadol doses from three a day (at 10, 6, and 2am, which is killing me) to two a day, or move them back to 8, 4, and midnight if she gets agitated with fewer drugs. This is great news.

The other great news is that given everything, they said walking her to the end of the block and back would be fine--also good as that is routinely where she does her thing; it's like she needs the little perambulation to get things moving.

They recommended doggie massage for her (flexing and bending the joints on the affected leg) and warm compresses, which I think she'll actually enjoy. And alas, since it's not a fur growing season, she'll probably have the naked leg all winter, poor girl.

All things considered, they were pleased with how much she seems to be using the leg (not a ton, but because we won't let her), that she's mostly crated or otherwise still, and that we're not letting her up and down stairs. That's getting old, though. Still, I'm trying hard to avoid being in the 40% of dog owners whose dog need the other knee TPLOed after the first one, so I'm trying to keep her in some kind of good shape.

Second Update

I couldn't stand the random pooplets showing up around the house (and truth be told I don't think Ginger could either; she was mortified at this, though alas, not the butt-wiping on the rug) so I discontinued the sedative. Pooplets started coming less frequently immediately; down to two last night and none today. We're all relieved.

We're being bad doggie parents and letting her out of the crate but she is really lying still for hours on end, and just gets up to walk to the other room (10 feet away) and lie down in the sunny spot over there. She was actually more active in the crate. And I didn't fill the birdfeeders so the squirrels won't be crazy on our deck.

Today we'll finish the first antibiotic. Even dropping one pill (twice per day) from the regimen is cause for celebration to me.

She is having ham ennui. And the morphine derivative she's on apparently tastes terrible as she is just really choking it down. However, American cheese is working for her, and white bread for the less disgusting ones.

First Update

TPLO. No, it's not the resurrection of a 1970s band. It's the preferred surgery (no doubt by the surgeons) for dogs with torn ACLs, one of whom is now the dog of our house. This has been our huge distraction of the new year.

On December 31, the dog got out the front door when one of the kids was opening it while I was saying "Do NOT open the door!" Fortunately, the dog always runs to the playground up the street, which is where we were heading anyway, so I just grabbed the leash and we went on our way. We found her there quickly, where she played a game of chase with the boys, and then she came running for me, which she always does when she's done running. It was then I noticed she was running on three legs. I knew she'd never done that in our six years of having her, so I called the vet from my cellphone and got an appointment for that day. The vet took one look and handed me the orthopedic references sheet while they took the dog for xrays.

Due to the holiday, the ortho's first appointment was the next Monday, January 5. The dog was still not putting the leg down at all, and when we saw the ortho, it took him five seconds to tell us why. Her ACL was completely shot, and in a dog, that's what keeps the leg together. Without it, her bones were literally sliding in different directions when she tried to put weight on her paw. So we had her operated on the next day. She was too big and too active for the "old" surgery. And of the two "new" choices, TPLO made the most sense, though also the biggest dent in the savings account.

I hated leaving her at the vet's. The whole time we were there she was clearly in pain but kept trying to subtly leave the building while she thought no one was watching. But I knew I was making a decision that would cause the dog horrendous pain on an already hurt leg, and it was hard to feel good about that; how can you possibly explain that to a dog? You can't.

And boy, did she let me know it when it was time to pick her up. She was happy to see me but way, way happier to see the door. The surgery went well, and while the stitches looked massive, I was impressed with the clean incision site--almost no blood visible at all. It has stayed that way, which is amazing, though we're only four days post-op.

The recovery is harder in many ways than the actual surgery. She needs to be in a crate for two weeks, and an E-collar ("E" for "Elizabethan") to keep her from licking and infecting her incision. The first e-collar was hard plastic and really caused her to panic, especially in the crate. By the next morning, I was at our regular vet's, getting her a sedative and a fabric E-collar.

When I got back, I realized my error. She was so doped up when I left her in our bedroom, I hadn't bothered crating her. She was really sleeping, and had hardly moved al night. Once we were all gone, though, she totally panicked. When I got back, everything that had been on our cedar chest was on the floor, and my husband's valet was tipped over. She has been alone in the house plenty of times and never been destructive...lesson learned. Sedative and crate it was, though the fabric E-collar was a huge help.

Meanwhile, we live in a split level and she is not allowed to climb stairs for five weeks. I hope we all make it this long as she has a real loathing of being carried. It was one thing when she was so hurt she couldn't put her leg down, but now that she feels better, she is not dealing well with the carrying at all.

And that's where we are, here four days post-surgery. Her swelling was always minimal and is almost gone. Her bruise is getting redder but otherwise her leg looks as normal as a shaved chicken leg on a dog can. She is already trying to walk on it and while it is not at all normal, it's pretty darned close. She even ran down our only carpeted steps after me today when I was taking down the laundry.

Oh, the laundry. The reason I was taking the laundry downstairs is because the sedative we got for her (acepro-something) has the wildly unpleasant side effect of making her incontinent with her feces. She is leaving droppings everywhere and has dingleberries hanging off her behind for the first time ever in the time that we have owned her. She is hating this too and is trying to drag her tush across the rug to "help". This is not helping me in the slightest. (Combine this with my son's throwing up virus today and we are having quite the body functions day around here, especially with the carpet cleaning smells on top.)

The acepro worked in many ways--she was much calmer, not whining constantly to get out of the crate. The soft collar was also a godsend. I am sorry my son was sick and I couldn't get to the pet shop to get marrow bones or kongs or anything to keep her occupied.

What I did not like about the acepro is that it does not split well--it makes a lot of powder and it's hard to get a clean cut. That meant that I overdosed her inadvertently last night and she was really out of it. And the "pooping in the house" thing is really intolerable with two small kids running around here.

The first 48 hours post-surgery were hard. She only stopped whining when she was eating, and she is so set to "active" that she kept trying to get away to just move her body. I hope this helps in the end but I know it's potentially really destructive for now. She would only calm down when my husband or I laid down with her. She didn't mind the cold compresses, especially if she was getting a belly rub at the same time. She is great about being touched in a firm, massage-y kind of way.

She's been good about the pills, and there are a lot, but they are always in peanut butter or ham, so what's not to like? And we got her some canned food, which we usually don't, to ensure she would eat (and she is doing fine in that department. Currently she's on two different antibiotics, Deramaxx (painkiller/anti-inflammatory, I think) and a morphine derived painkiller too, the name of which I forget. Since she was already on four meds and had been crate trained, I didn't get the sedative at first. Big mistake. I should have asked for five, to get us over the hump if needed. It was needed, and five would have made it easier and bought us time before I could get a full dose. And honestly, I think five might have done it entirely for her. And me