recheck

Our visit last night was not the success I wanted it to be. Seems her temp is still up and when I mentioned she fell on it Sunday, the decision to sedate her and do an xray was suggested, at the same time the vet would be able to look at the metal plating to see if any infection had set in. He was totally amazed at her walking and the amount of weight she was putting on the leg without much of a limp.  Xrays showed everything was perfect, no damage was done in her fall, no infection, so whats causing the elevated temp? It could possibly be just her nerves because of where we are. Dr. Tropea handed me his thermometer and asked me to take her temp the next few days to see if that could be the problem, poor Brina, now moms about to violate her *S*. So here's crossing the fingers and hoping it stays under 39 degree.

Staples removed

so on day 8 we brought her back to have her staples removed, a very painless process, always count along with the vet to make sure all are removed.

We weighed Brina and were amazed that there was no weight loss or gain, we have to watch her diet to make sure during her inactivity that she doesn't gain too much and damage her other knee's.  One staple was turned around and took a bit longer to remove. Her dr was impressed with her walking but she had a slight fever which he's treating with a 10 day round of antibiotics , Zeniquin, once a day with food, they really seem to make her stomach upset and would bring up bile each morning.  We can now start rotating her leg for 5 rotations each time, increasing it as we go along, we use a warm pack before the exercise to warm up her muscles and a cool pack afterwards to ward off pain and cool the muscles down to avoid spasms. We can also now do a 5-8 minutes walk on a flat surface, so we use our driveway and do two laps, when we come in we give her leg a good massage, she seems to appreciate it. Her appetite is now back to normal and we're still giving her the yogurt. And best of all, she's now allowed up on her beloved couch again...which means I've lost it *L*.

(why does it look like she's waiting for the remote and a beer?)


    Sunday Jan 30th, she slid off her ramp and fell onto her leg, the yelp that came from her was sickening and she refused to walk on it for a wee bit and continues to have a slight limp, we go today, Feb 1 for a recheck of the fever and I'll have him check it out then, hopefully no damage was done, but we've stopped her walks outside until we get the go ahead again.  I'll check back in with you all tomorrow and let you know how she's doing.

x-rays

so we finally got the xrays . This series was taken to determine the extent of the damage and to make sure it was torn and not just arthritis, all I can tell you is that the "fingernail" size deep white is arthritis and they were amazed at her point of injury that she had so little of it and said it was because of the glucosamine we give her.

we asked them to check her hips while she was out also , we were worried about hip dysplasia because of her limp when she was 6-9 months old. if you follow the line of the socket and it covers at least 50% of the ball joint then thats great! and there is no sign or hint of dysplasia, Brina's hips passed with flying colors.

the next xrays were taken just before/during surgery to determine the angle

then after surgery before they awoke her, note the staples.

catch up

ok, its about time I catch up on all thats been happening, Brina continued to improve daily from her surgery, we were amazed at her appetite, there seemed to be no filling her up, I added plain yogurt to her diet to help combat the antibiotics from killing off the good bacteria with the bad. I kept my bedside vigil for 5 nights, after that time she seemed quite able to move around when needed and to shift from side to side without hurting herself.

   No one mentioned how lonely she would be!! She'd do a pitiful bark and "pee pee" dance till one of us would get up, take her out and then lay down with her, thus giving her the company she wanted*L* so we'd be wide awake with her snuggled up and sleeping beside us. 
   She had some swelling around her ankle, fluids gathering, but not like we'd expected, mulitply daily massages helped with that and she really seemed to enjoy having us rub and massage her bad leg.

we started at this point to allow her a bit more freedom and she soon took over the living room as her kennel, she was kept gated from the rest of the house and had to stay only where we placed scatter mats.