I met Don at AMVS at 11:30 this morning to pick Winston up. They went over his discharges with us and then Dr. Flynn came and talked to us for awhile. He didn't give us the angle of the correction (he said he'd leave that for Dr. Duerr), but said that it was better than the TPLO on the right leg. There was no damage to the meniscus (hooray!) but unfortunately there is significant arthritis in this knee now. We will have to keep him on joint supplements for the rest of his life. We have been using a product called Flexicose which is a grape flavored liquid that we add to his food each morning. It's worked out really well for us because we're big on convenience. Also his cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) was now completely ruptured, so sometime in the past year (at Abilene?) he tore it the rest of the way through even with the Tightrope in place.
We've been through this enough that I didn't have many questions, but the one that occurred to me last night was to ask about the bone breaking around the TPLO plate and if we need to worry about that in the future once Winston gets back to normal. He's a pretty active guy, so I wondered if we'd have to be really super careful with him for the rest of his life. Dr. Flynn said that usually happens if the post surgery recovery instructions aren't followed to the letter and the dog is allowed to be too active too soon. Once he's fully healed up it shouldn't be a risk any more than breaking a bone on his own. No worries there, we've got lots of practice going slow and keeping him contained. Dr. Flynn asked us if he had been dribbly with urine for his previous surgeries, and the answer is, "yes" (poor guy). Dr. Flynn said that they had expressed Winston's bladder so that hopefully he wouldn't be as bad for us when he went home. Guess he made a mess there?
Once we finished talking to Dr. Flynn, they brought Winston to us from the back. He had the huge satellite e-collar on and you could tell that he still hates it. "I do not like the cone of shame" is a perfect line from the movie "Up"! Obviously whoever wrote that has experience with the cone of shame. He's already walking on the leg better than he was two days ago and didn't seem to mind the sling. I backed the car up to the door since there was a nice patch of ice right under the hatch and Don and the nurse Joshua team lifted him up into the car.
By the time we got home, he was doing that moan whine thing like he had to poop. We got him unloaded and headed to the back yard with the sling. Nope, he had to pee REALLY BAD. He peed and then started back to the house, then turned around and paced a little. I thought he was going to squat, but instead he peed again. We headed back to the house only to turn around and he peed a third time. I was pretty eager to get him into the house by that time because it was only 17 degrees out and I think he walked too much. His leg was bleeding from the TPLO side and draining clear fluid from the Tightrope side (where they'd removed the fiber tape and the lower toggle).
I fed him a small meal for lunch, which he ate and he slept for a few hours before needing to pee again. He settled back down on his bed and I iced his leg (wasn't too happy about that this time but he let me). He was falling asleep and would start to roll to the side and then jerk himself upright every few minutes, so I finally put the cone of shame back on and went upstairs so that he'd have total quiet for awhile.
He got up when Don came home, and got some hugs and pets before dinner. I fed him another small meal with some canned food in it. He ate it all and then drank some water and then velcroed himself to my lap while I pet him. He felt a bit cold. His back half felt normal but his ears and front legs were a little cold. I turned up the space heater that's in his room and Don went downstairs and started a fire. Pretty soon the room was toasty and Winston felt normal again.
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