We just got back from AMVS for Winston's 8 week check. Boy did he NOT want to go in there! They took him back for x-rays and said that he was just facing toward the door the entire time, poor guy. Dr. Trousdale has finished his internship and has moved on to his residency in California. They told me that it was a prestigious position with a lot of competition, so they were all really happy for him to have gotten it. Hooray for Dr. Trousdale!
So I met with the new intern, Dr. Flint (I think?) and with Dr. Duerr. They said that Winston's bone hasn't completely healed, but has healed enough that we can move to the next step in his rehabilitation which is swimming and doing more muscle building activities. They said that they could feel some movement in the joint still most likely due to all of the soft-tissue healing not catching up to the rest of the healing. He's got a tougher road ahead of him because it wasn't a "fresh knee" with no trauma. We had a lot of damage to the soft tissues because of the Tightrope and the infection, and then some further degradation because of the atrophy.
Of course, I would have loved to hear that everything is peachy-keen and we never need to go back, but they want us to start more muscle-building activities and then go back in 4-6 weeks for another re-check to see if the movement in the joint is better. At this point they feel that with some more muscle on his leg to hold things in place, the movement will go away.
We have the "ok" for him to do stairs on his own (no leash) as long as he's not tearing up and down them. He is usually pretty sensible about that, so I'm planning on leaving the baby gate down while we can watch him and put it up if we're not around. I'm also going to start doing the series of sit-stands that we did with the last two knee repairs. He sits for a tiny biscuit then stands up then sits again to get another biscuit, and so on until he's done 5 reps, and we do this 2-3 times a day. It's kind of funny because Josie thinks it's wrong for him to get a treat without her, so she caught onto all of his exercises just as quickly as him, so they both do the exercises together.
I called the Boyd Lake Veterinary Center in Loveland to check on their pool again. Last time I spoke with them it sounded like I'd be doing all the work with getting Winston to swim, but now they've changed it so that their staff is doing all the work. The time of the session has dropped from 30 minutes to 20 (we're supposed to only start with 5 minutes of swimming so that's fine), but the price has also gone up. His first session is set up for Thursday evening at 5:00pm.
We've been having evening thunderstorms lately, so there's a good chance we'll have to reschedule. I've got my fingers crossed!
Another milestone passed in the recovery cycle! I hope the swimming works out. The hydrothereapy Gracie is doing once a week seems to help. I'm looking around for a swimming hole in the Salem area but no luck yet. We have plenty of rivers and streams nearby but not quite clean enough for Gracie to swim in. Keep up the sit/stands and walking. Best of luck!
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