Friday, October 31, 2008

How a Princess Recovers from CL Surgery


Where to begin? I suppose back in January when Tobie first hurt her left knee. She was able to recover with anti-inflammatories and rest that time. Then, the day I made the banner in the last blog post, she turned up lame again. This time, there was no known event (like playing in the snow) that caused the injury and it seemed worse, as she was not using the paw at all. My mom and step-dad rested her for the week we were on vacation, and there was some progress.


Fred and I met with the surgeon on Wednesday and due to muscle loss in her hind-end and severe swelling, the surgeon felt that this current injury was in fact older than 10 days. I walked in the office not wanting the surgery, but we both felt that was the right course of treatment and so she stayed and the TPLO was preformed that evening.


We picked her up yesterday afternoon and she let us know by grumbling at us for the first hour she was home how unhappy she was with our decision. She slept most of the evening and did eat a bit of boiled hamburger and cooked rice for dinner. I slept downstairs with her on an air mattress. I really should say "slept." She was a bit restless. About 3 AM, Fred brought Monty down as he was upstairs complaining. After that, she got up on the mattress with me and we slept for about three hours.


This morning, she was sleeping in the mudroom in one of her favorite spots while I was on my computer. Monty was doing his usual desk troll task. When I got up, no Tobie in the mudroom. Where is my girlie? Where did she go?


As you can see from the picture, she is so glad we set up the air mattress just so she could recover in comfort.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so glad Tobie made it through well, albeit the complaints. They always let us know when they don't agree, and in quite plain terms. Best wishes for a speedy recovery and better nights of sleep!

Anonymous said...

We went thru 3 ACL surgeries with our Berner Girl we lost six months ago to old age. Like you, we completely changed how we lived while she recovered. My kids used to accuse us of being crazy Berner people. We admit it.

Always glad to see we are not alone. A toast to Tobie's speedy recovery.

Kim said...

Wishing Tobie a very speedy recovery!