Friday, July 31, 2009
Dog Days II
The dog went in for TPLO surgery again today, this time on the opposite leg. It breaks my heart that my pups has to go through this again. Sick, alone and afraid and surrounded by other distressed animals in a miserable vet's office, not sure where her family is. Okay, maybe she's fine and I'm just a little emotional these days. Still, my poor little girl.
Trust me, if there were a way to heal a torn cruciate ligament naturally, we would have achieved it. Lord knows we tried. After the lessons of the first TPLO, we took the opportunity to experiment with as many preventative measures as possible. After all, we had one healthy leg left, we just had to try to prevent a tear, right? So we changed the diet to raw, added all the supplements like high quality liquid glucosamine and flax butter, tried homeopathics, gave her meaty bones for all of that marrow goodness, and restricted her activity, using swimming as a primary way to rehab the injured leg and preserve the 'good' leg. It just didn't work.
It was heart breaking to watch her limp get more and more pronounced over the past couple of months. Apparently this happens in 80% of TPLO cases; the other joint does eventually go. Of course, I strive to beat statistics. But when you think about it, the surgery is essentially cutting a bone in half, leveling the joint and stabilizing it all with plates and screws. So how could the other leg be as strong or even remain a good match? Everything is off kilter.
It's an expensive surgery. We hate that we had to do it twice. But of course we love this dog, God willing she still has a lot of years left and we want them to be full of running, jumping and swimming. Because watching her live like that makes us so happy.
posted by Working From Home Today
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