We dropped Winston off at AMVS again for what we hope is his last surgery for the infection in his knee joint. Later in the morning Dr. Trousdale called to say that they were unable to push fluid through the joint (he told me this is a sign of healing) and that he trimmed away the granulating tissue on the edges of the wound so that he had a good bleeding edge to sew together. After a wound has been open this long, I guess there are other concerns about whether all the layers will heal to each other and whether the wound will stay closed. He seemed pretty concerned, but since I don't have any experience with any of this, it's hard for me to really understand all that could happen. All I know is that if my vet is concerned, I should be too.
He said that the knee is still very unstable and that's probably how it is going to stay, but our first priority right now is to get him out of the woods with the infection before we worry about next steps. They'll be sending him home with antibiotics for 2 more weeks, so that he'll be on them for a full month, then we have to wait another two weeks to see if the infection comes back. At that time, we'll see where we're at.
We picked him up this evening and took him home with a "pegleg" bandage on his leg. It fully covered his leg from the tips of his toes (which did just peek out from the end) all the way up to cover most of his thigh. We got to watch Dr. Trousdale put it on, and I thought the process was pretty interesting. They want us to try and keep the bandage on for at least 3 days, and hopefully 5, but said that we could remove it if it got wet or really started to bunch up behind his knee. We're also supposed to feel his toes a few times a day and if they feel cold, we're supposed to remove the bandage. Don paid the final bill for today's care.
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