Since my last blog entry I've been paying more attention to the little details about how Winston uses/doesn't use his back legs. For a long time after his last surgery, he wouldn't fully stand on his left hind leg. Most of his weight was on the right leg and he had the left foot down, but I could tell it was more for balance than anything else.
Lately I've been noticing that he really looks like he's standing on that leg. I can see that the toes are more splayed on the right foot than on the left foot, so I suspect that there's still more weight on the right leg than the left, but he's doing better. He also doesn't shuffle around as much to push off with the right leg when he stands up. Again, it's still the right leg doing most of the work, but there's definitely some left leg use.
Amazing how little improvements like this make my day!
October 19, 2010
October 1, 2010
5 months post TPLO explant
I can't believe that it's been 5 months already!
I'm happy to report that Winston is doing pretty well. We can walk 3 decent length walks (we're limited by his size and ability to cool himself down at this time of year before we're limited by his back legs). He also gets some free times in the entire yard, but we can't do that daily or he reaches a tipping point where he gets too sore and then we have to cut back on all exercise. We limit this to every other day or every third day. He won't restrict himself, so we have to evaluate how sore he seems before we open the gate between the yards.
He's still on pain meds, and that's how it will be for the rest of his life. We've been able to cut back the dosage a bit as long as we manage his exercise.
He's still got some muscle atrophy in his back legs, but not too bad. I also notice that he doesn't fully use the left hind leg. For example, when he stands up, he shuffles his back legs around under him until he gets the right one in place, and he uses that one as his "push off" leg.
He runs and plays soccer with his big green horse ball, and is generally a happy guy, so we can live with the restrictions that we've got.
I'm happy to report that Winston is doing pretty well. We can walk 3 decent length walks (we're limited by his size and ability to cool himself down at this time of year before we're limited by his back legs). He also gets some free times in the entire yard, but we can't do that daily or he reaches a tipping point where he gets too sore and then we have to cut back on all exercise. We limit this to every other day or every third day. He won't restrict himself, so we have to evaluate how sore he seems before we open the gate between the yards.
He's still on pain meds, and that's how it will be for the rest of his life. We've been able to cut back the dosage a bit as long as we manage his exercise.
He's still got some muscle atrophy in his back legs, but not too bad. I also notice that he doesn't fully use the left hind leg. For example, when he stands up, he shuffles his back legs around under him until he gets the right one in place, and he uses that one as his "push off" leg.
He runs and plays soccer with his big green horse ball, and is generally a happy guy, so we can live with the restrictions that we've got.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)