Tag Archives: TPLO

12 1/2 Weeks…

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It’s been a very, very long three months, but I’m pleased to report this evening that Winston has been given a clean bill of health by his orthopedic surgeon. He’s clear to resume normal activities up to and including use of the stairs on a limited basis over the next month. As happy as I am that my boy is good to go, I’m even happier that I can stop making regular monthly donations to the new wing that I’m sure I’ve been financing on the vet’s house.

WinstonWhen we started the TPLO process three months ago, I’m sure the vet was trying to be reassuring when she told me that a decade ago this was the kind of injury that would have been grounds for putting a dog down. The thought would have never occurred to me. Because for the last 50 years Americans have had more money than brains, it seems that just about any kind of surgery you and I can get, our four legged friends can get too. The marvels of medical science have definitely not left our pets out of their unending march of progress. In fact one of the forms I signed this morning was basically an advanced directive for Winston – laying out how heroic I expect their life saving efforts to be if his heart should happen to stop while he was getting his x-rays done. For the record, I was ok with them performing basic CPR and administering electronic defibrillation. That seemed like a reasonable compromise between “do nothing” and “crack open his ribcage and perform emergency open heart surgery.”

I’m told that Winston had a good day of wandering around with some of the techs and generally being the attention whore that he is. What can I say, my boy is a chick magnet. It was obviously hard work, because he’s been snoring in his crate since about three minutes after we got home this afternoon. I’d say he’s earned a rest.

For the moment, all is once again right with the world… but he’s a bulldog and I know that means the next medical disaster is out their just waiting to happen. Although I have no idea what it might be, I hope it hold off long enough to let me finish paying for the one we just got through.

10 week update…

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I realized this afternoon that it’s been a while since my last Winston update and figured with this being a slow news day it’s as good a time to correct that as I’m likely to find. For those of you playing along at home, tomorrow will be 10 weeks since his surgery. You’ll remember the first two weeks were close confinement with walking kept to an absolute minimum. The last six weeks have seen slightly less confinement, but still have kept activity rather limited. In two weeks when we go back to the surgeon for his alleged last post-operative check up, I desperately hope that she will give the all clear for him to resume as much of a normal life as possible.

I really don’t know which of us will be more excited to finally see the plastic pen disappear from the middle of the living room. That the current Rental Casa de Jeff is a tri-level split gives me a moment of pause, though. I think it’s safe to say that my boy has climbed his last set of stairs, which means that he’s more or less limited to the kitchen and living room for the foreseeable future. That’s a lot more space than he’s had in the last two months, but still feels pretty confining. The pitch of the steps and their location make any kind of indoor ramping prohibitive, but I’m still casting around for a better idea than throwing up baby gates and calling it a done deal.

One thing I do have to say is that he’s getting around far better than I would have expected given how much work they did to his leg. I suppose in the wild a dog either plays hurt or lays down and dies, so there’s probably more than a little evolution at play. Still, even with high quality medication I’m not sure two days after having my knee rebuilt I’d have much interest in getting up and looking around.

Winston has been a real trooper through the whole experience and it seems like the hard part for him is wrapping up. Now if I can get past the notion that 50% of dogs that blow out one knee also blow out the other, everything will be just fine. Until then, I’m going to spaz out a little inside every time the poor dog takes a step.

Seven weeks along…

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So if the flood of facebook posts, emails, junk mail, and phone calls going on are to be believed, there’s an election happening tomorrow. Another rant here about politics would be the usual go-to for this time of year, but instead, I’m going to bring you up to speed on something important: Winston is (believe it or not), returned from his seven week post-surgical round of poking’s, prodding’s, and x-rays, and has been pronounced approximately 70% healed from his TPLO experience. The pins and plates are holding up well, there’s no infection, and aside from the expected muscle loss from 7 weeks of mostly doing nothing, the surgeon blessed him as “within normal limits.” I learned a long time ago that when it comes to bulldogs and health, within normal limits is pretty much the best report you can hope for, so overall I’m pleased with the current state of things.

The next six weeks look like they should be more of the same. He’ll stay in his expended pen, get three or four 15 minute walks a day, and otherwise be prohibited from doing anything that might approximate having fun. That’s going to make our yearly Thanksgiving trip to the menagerie something of an experience, as running, jumping, and interacting with other animals is going to be frowned upon. The good news is that by Christmas, the worst of the restrictions should be lifted. This is a good thing, because I wasn’t looking forward to toting and hauling his exercise pen, two crates, and gross of baby gates with me to Western Maryland for the holidays.

So yeah, I’m pretty pleased with how things went today… and maybe now I can be slightly less paranoid every time he moves. I’ll always be haunted by the prospect of him doing the same thing to the other leg, but at the moment, I’m all about the good news so let’s just leave that for a separate discussion.

P.S. Yes, there is an election tomorrow… and despite what Facebook tells you, it does matter who you vote for. It does matter that you make informed decisions. And it does matter that you exercise the right that makes all the other rights possible. So please, for the good of the Republic, spend some time tonight boning up on the issues and then get to the polls tomorrow.

Three week update…

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Sitting here after scarfing up entirely too much dinner, I remembered that I promised an update on how Winston is making out in his third week post-surgery. The short version: after three weeks and three days, you wouldn’t know that he just had his leg broken in two places and a respectable size chunk of steel jammed in there. He’s not limping, and has once again started pulling hard when we’re out on the leash. So far he’s tolerated his old puppy pen set up in the middle of the living room, but judging from the amount of snorting and general malcontentery, it’s only a matter of time before he puts his shoulder into it and drags the whole pen to whatever part of the room he wants to be in at any given time. I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to address that when the time comes.

As of right now, the way ahead looks alot like the past three weeks: Strict confinement for the next nine weeks at a minimum, no steps, no running, no playing, no time off leash, and three to four 15 minute walks every day to keep up as mush muscle mass as possible. He’s due back at the surgeon’s office at the end of the month for his six week checkup and x-rays, but unless something blows up between now and then, I’m expecting a good report. So far, everything has been good news, but because every cloud has a lead lining, I’m going to spend the rest of his natural life worrying myself sick that he’s going to blow out the other one or do something to undo what’s already been fixed.

Being a single father of two is damned hard work.

Recovery, Day 4…

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Intellectually, I know that the only thing Winston did today was hang out in his crate, chew his Kong a bit, and maybe shift from one side to the other a few times. He physically can’t bend enough to bother his stitches and nothing from the last three days gives me any indication that he will have any problems today. Knowing full well that he’d be fine when I got home, didn’t diminish my feelings of monumental guilt about leaving him to go to work this morning. I’m a worrier like that.

It’s day four following TPLO surgery and my boy is almost exactly where they surgeon said he would be… his leg is swollen, there’s fluid buildup around the ankle, meal times are still a little hit or miss, and the meds are keeping him a little out of sorts. His fentanyl patch comes off tonight, so I’m expecting a little more pain starting tomorrow morning. He’s tolerating the ice packs three times a day, but clearly is not a fan. According to the doc, I’m also supposed to be doing “passive range of motion” exercises with him several times a day. As far as I can tell from the instruction sheet, it’s more or less amateur physical therapy and Winston absolutely won’t have any of it. Any attempt to put him on his side to do the exercises results in a wildly flailing bulldog and I figure that’s doing more harm than good. It’s one of the only times in recorded history I’ve wished there was a second set of hands around this place on a regular basis.

I have to remind myself that just like us, for him recovering from surgery is a game of inches, not one of leaps and bounds. It’s going to be a long twelve weeks, but at this point I’ll be happy just to get the all clear to stop using the belly sling when he gets his five minute supervised excursions outside. I just wish I had more than a halfassed idea about what “normal” was supposed to look like. Guess I should have ditched the whole history thing and got to vet school instead.

Resting Semi-comfortably…

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Winston has been home for about 30 minutes now and he’s getting around better than I anticipated. He’s still pretty unstable in the turns, but he’s putting weight on the leg and at least making an effort. That’s probably more than I’d do less than 24 hours after someone intentionally broke my femur and put in a steel plate. Other than a quick pit stop on the way inside, he went straight to his crate and is currently snoring like a chainsaw. Pain meds must be wonderful things.

I’m sitting here at the kitchen table looking at about 50 pages of discharge instructions, six bottles of pills, canned and bagged prescription food, and a helpful diagram showing how to “sling walk” your pooch. I suspect the next 14 weeks are going to be harder on me than on him… especially since the vet made a point of reminding me that veterinary medication is not for human consumption. I’m wondering if I look like a guy who thinks pet medicine would be a good idea or if that’s a standard warning to avoid liability issues.

As usual, my boy was a hit with the techs and two of them were hanging out in his kennel when I got to the vet’s office. And by hanging out I mean sitting in the cage hand feeding him and rubbing his belly. They may have set his expectations a little too high for how things are going to go around here for the next few weeks, but still, I appreciated the extra attention.

Maggie spent all day yesterday roaming the house looking for him and is currently trying to wrap her little brown head around why he doesn’t seem to want to play. For the moment, though, she seems happy crashing next to his crate and keeping an eye on things. It appears that this is what the rest of the weekend will look like.

Sick list…

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The fact that I like my dogs more that I like most people isn’t exactly a secret. Of course means I’m not going to trust their treatment to just any schlep who’s got just enough smarts to slide through vet school and hang out their own shingle. After meeting with the orthopedic surgeon this morning, the only part of me that regrets being anal retentive enough to want to see an expert is my wallet. I spent a little more than an hour getting a crash course of canine anatomy and physiology and peppering her with questions about the specific benefits and drawback of the “top three” options. After selecting the tibeal plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO), which involves changing the structure of the joint, adding a steel plate, and a few screws, I spent another 45 minutes with the OR nurse picking her brain about after care and things to avoid once Winston gets home. I was actually impressed with being able to spend almost two hours talking to the people who are doing the surgery, though I suspect they were happy when I reached the end of my laundry list of questions.

I’m satisfied that this is the best way to proceed, or I was right up until the estimated bill was placed gently in front of me. For the record, if someone in a vet’s office comes at you with a three page itemized bill, you should go ahead and sit down before you start reading it. I offered to trade them a kidney or a lobe of my liver for the service, but they politely declined, which is unfortunate since I’m pretty certain that would be less painful than actually paying the bill. Any plans I had for a vacation, or doing anything that costs more that a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, are suspended indefinitely.

I’m sitting here writing this with one eye on the clock. I know this hot shot doctor of mine was scheduled to do three surgeries this afternoon, but I don’t know what order she had them planned. Suffice to say every time the phone beeps, I jump halfway out of my chair. Yeah, you could saw I’m wound a little extra tight at the moment. With the ramp built from the deck to the yard and as much of the floor as possible covered with non-slip rugs, I’m down to the point of the day where all I can do is wait. No bets on how many of you can guess on how I feel about that.