Winston is so eager to walk, we've been walking more than 5 minutes for each of our walks. He does pretty well during the walk, but still has kind of a "bicycle seat is too short" pedaling motion rather than a normal reach with his leg.
Our physical therapy visit was pretty short today since Winston is too long for the underwater treadmill. We did another laser treatment and she evaluated how he's doing. In another couple of weeks we can start some of the same exercises we did after the tightrope surgery. In the meantime I should walk Winston in clockwise circles since that will force him to use the leg. Also I'm to start an exercise where I lift his left hind leg for a few seconds so that he's standing on the right hind leg. She also recommended that I increase the frequency of the walks rather than the time. I've read this before with other people's experiences. Since I work from home, that's possible for me.
She said that she didn't think there was much swelling or fluid, just a tiny bit at the bottom of the incision. I asked about the "lump" that I'd noticed from time to time on the outside of his knee and she poked and prodded and said that it was hard and she thought it was scar tissue from the way it healed after the infection. Basically she told me to try not to worry too much. I had mentioned that I was worried about another infection. She said that it seemed that Mastiffs or any of the really large dogs seemed to have a harder time with that. She said she'd read about a theory that it was because they were under anesthesia longer.
Since our appointment was so short she asked if we could come back tomorrow for another quick laser treatment. Sure, but Don is busy helping a friend move, so I'm on my own. Can I get him unloaded by myself? If he can walk down the ramp, I can.
After we finished our appointment, I stopped by the front desk and mentioned that Dr. Trousdale wanted one of the surgeons to take a look at Winston while he was there to check on his leg. Dr. Hanzlik was there and she had scrubbed into his surgery so she was familiar with how his leg looked on the inside. She said he had a lot of scar tissue, which was the whole point of the Tightrope, but it's unfortunate that it had broken down in such a way that his knee wasn't supported. She thought the knee looked good and he didn't seem bothered by any manipulation. Hooray!
We used the ramp to unload him from the car and he went down it mostly on 3 legs. That's ok. It doesn't put any unnecessary pressure on the TPLO repair.
Once we got into the house, he seemed very sore and hardly used his leg at all -- just toe touching. Hmmmm. I decided not to walk him again and see if he was better in the morning.
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