| 4/24/01 |
| We are 11 days post TPLO today. Time has gone by quickly, even the bad days. I'm amazed we've made it this far sometimes, but realize we do have a long way to go yet. One of the dogs on the orthodogs list has had complications with his TPLO surgery. He is 5 days post op now and just came home last night. His bone broke right by a couple of the screws. At least the surgeon found the problem *before* they sent him home. They had to go in and do a second surgery and wire the bones back together. They also put an external fixator on the leg to hold it together until it heals. This is the third dog that has had this happen. One of the others has been put to sleep, one is a Great Dane that also just came home recently and also has an external fixator on his leg. He is about 2 months post op and still is not using the leg. It's very scary when it goes bad. It is nice out today. High 50s and sunny. Steve and Erica were outside moving some bushes around and picking up sticks out of the yard. They had started a fire in the burn circle. Magnum needed to go potty anyway so I took him outside, let him potty, had the kids get a blanket and a tarp (it is still pretty wet around here) and Magnum and I sat on the blanket and took in some sunshine and watched the fire. It was very nice. I think Magnum enjoyed being out of the house. He laid on his blanket very peacefully and sniffed the air. :-) He goes in for staple removal today. Can't wait to get that done and get something for his ears. It's supposed to be nice all week, 60s and 70s and sunny so I think we'll try to have some outside time every day. The kids can sit on the blanket with Magnum and do their reading. We got a rope put up in the tree by the burn circle so the kids can play on the rope. It has knots for climbing and a board at the bottom for swinging on. I'm sure Magnum would rather be running around the yard with the kids but today he seemed content to just lay on the blanket with me and watch them playing nearby. We went in to get staples out today. He was very nervous, panting, trying to jump at the door and get out but he did lay down and let the tech take his staples out. He was a good boy. The Dr. said his leg looks great! Yeah!! They said keep up the good. work. He looked at the ear and said that it looked like it might be a drug reaction so stop the antibiotics (which we had done already) and gave us Panalog for it. If it doesn't get better in 7 days we are supposed to go to our regular vet. He said it didn't really look like a typical infection to him and that dogs don't get yeast infections from antibiotics like people do. I asked about leash walks and they said not for 6 more weeks at least, maybe not until 3 months post op. I kind of groaned but will follow their directions the best I can. The tech did think that sitting outside on a blanket would be o.k. So, we have a very long road ahead. His lip looks good so we are o.k.d to chew away! Yeah!!! Thank you Lord. |