December 9, 2009: 7 days post-TPLO

Yesterday Winston was walking almost normally when we went out for potty breaks, and I thought it seemed almost too good to be true.  Today he's limping again, but hey, it was 16 degrees below zero this morning so even Josie said that her feet were freezing off.  She ran out and peed and ran back to the door and hopped from foot to foot saying HURRY HURRY HURRY to us.  Winston, on the other hand, stretched the time out as long as he could because he is bored in his pen.  He peed then went to the far corner of the yard to think about pooping.  Then got distracted.  Then started to wander so I told him we were going to go back inside which put him back into the, "oh but I have to poop" mode.  So he searched again for just the perfect spot and started to circle.  Then got distracted again.  We headed back toward the house 3 times before he finally found the perfect spot and assumed the position.

I'm doing range of motion and "bicycling" exercises with his leg.  He's not overly happy about them, but at the same time, doesn't seem too concerned about them either.  His leg feels pretty stiff when I try to stretch it out.  I'll have to do some more work on that.

I think that Winston has also permanently graduated from the cone of shame to the donut e-collar.  Yesterday Don put the donut on him after he went out at 7pm  for a potty break.  Winston went to sleep and stayed asleep longer than I expected.  I woke him at 10pm to give him his antibiotics and then at 11pm to give him his tramadol.  He woke me up at 3:30 this morning needing to go out.  After we got back inside, I attempted to put the cone on him (seems like it would be more comfortable to sleep in than the donut) but he kept ducking his head to avoid it.  I put the donut back on and we all went back to sleep until 6am.  The donut makes me a little nervous because I know that he can still get to his incisions if he really wanted to, but so far he hasn't showed the slightest interest.  I spend each day working down here so that he can have company and no e-collar, and he's never even sniffed at his leg.

Today we were out for our afternoon potty break and I saw how Josie was with Winston, I realized that the really sad part in all of this is that all the animals seem to think this is normal: every few months Winston has some kind of surgery and we all have to do/not do these things or act this way....

I sure can't wait for the day that this isn't normal and it's all some distant memory for all of us.  I have a good feeling about this surgery.  It's the same good feeling that I had with the last TPLO.

December 8, 2009: 6 days post-TPLO

How quickly things change! The little swollen patch on the outer incision that I thought was turning into a seroma yesterday is pretty much gone today, probably because even more of the swelling in the leg is gone. You can see some definition around his hock in the lower picture. There is still a little bulb of fluid on the back of the callus on the hock itself. It jiggles when he walks.

I went back to pain pills every 6 hours since stretching it to 8 hours didn't work yesterday. I did reduce the number of pills from 6 to 5, and that seems to be just fine. Winston is less restless and seems more comfortable today. It's all trial and error.

December 7, 2009: 5 days post TPLO

Winston is doing great so far. He has been standing to eat and drink as of yesterday and he wants to go out a lot more than he is allowed. He keeps standing up and trying to convince us that he really needs to go potty, but then doesn't do anything other than walk around and eat snow. There are times that I can't really blame him. If he's got the cone of shame on, he can't reach the bucket to get a drink. I'm trying to stay near him so that I can leave everything off of him so he can get a drink whenever he needs to. When I leave the house or go to sleep, he gets the cone of shame, and when I run to somewhere else in the house, I've been putting the inflatable donut collar on.

The swelling in his leg has gone down a lot, but now that it's gone down, I can see that he's got a slight seroma (or at least I'm going to assume it's a seroma for now) directly where the tightrope used to be. When we picked him up, they told me that incision was draining A LOT (more than they expected by the way they said it). Once the incision sealed up, there's no where for that fluid to go so it makes sense that he might get a seroma. He doesn't seem to mind me touching it, and it's pretty squishy just like the leg around it, so maybe it's still just part of all of the swelling that he's had. The tissue around the incision looks good and is a nice healthy color and the little bump out is not as large as the last seroma that he got on this same leg with the Tightrope procedure (see December 10, 2008 for a picture). I'm going to keep watching it closely as well as his attitude. If it gets larger I'll try hot compresses, but so far I'm just in the watch state rather than the total worry state :)

December 5, 2009, 3 days post-TPLO

Winston got me up at 3:30 this morning to go out and go potty and we've all been up ever since. I see a nap in my future. Winston's leg seems a little less swollen around the knee area but about the same in the hock area. He wasn't as happy today when I tried to ice his leg as he was yesterday. I think I managed only 5 minutes before he stood up. He definitely feels better because he has grabbed a Nylabone to chew on a couple of times already this morning and he is finding it easier to stand up. The standing up part isn't so good; he wants to go outside every time he stands up but I'm not letting him. He's gone potty twice since 3:30 (though no poop yet this morning which I know will need to happen sometime), but last time he convinced me that he needed to go out he just went out and ate snow and stared at our neighbor who is out doing something on his ATV again. Now every time Winston stands up I just tell him to lie down. I figure he'll whine at me if he's really serious. He's been trying the sad eyes so far and I'm not falling for it. I don't think he's figured out yet that if he whines I will take him out. Up to this point the only time he whines is when he REALLY needs to go bad.

I'm enjoying spending time in his room with him these days because we finished the remodel from the floor up in this room. The popcorn on the ceiling is gone, the drywall repairs are done, the walls and ceiling have been re-textured and painted, and all the new doors are in and the casing is up and the new light, and switch/outlet covers are all installed. I'm toying with the idea of putting up crown molding, but we've only got 8 foot ceilings, so I'm still debating. I got a short piece of molding to see how it would look and I think it will be ok. Anyway, as long as I don't look down, it's really nice to be in here. Too bad about the floors because we've got a heat mat that will go under the slate once everything is installed. Winston would have had a nice toasty place to lie down. The new flooring in this room has to wait until it's safe for everyone to go down the deck stairs since that's the only other exit from the house.

December 4, 2009, 1st Full Day Home

Winston did great overnight. He went out at 8pm and peed and pooped (hooray!) and then slept through the night until 5am when he needed to go out to pee again. I wish I could say the same for me. I slept on the couch at the top of the stairs so that I could hear him and every time I heard him I got up to see if he'd gotten up. He was only shifting in his sleep. By the time I felt exhausted and tried to really fall asleep myself Josie would thump her tail on the floor at my slightest move. I must have fallen asleep around 4am so I nearly slept through the 5am alarm but Josie got me up (good girl!).

When he went out for his potty break, his leg didn't leak at all so I think maybe we're beyond that now. I lay down again until 6am when he had more pills due and also breakfast. He wanted to go out to go potty again before I actually got him his breakfast and it was probably a good thing. He peed and pooped, but this time it was a bit loose. I decided not to include any canned food with breakfast and see how he did with his regular kibble with a bit of water and Flexicose. He ate it just like normal. I guess I should mention that he is still eating lying down. He had some water afterwards and I watched the weather report on the news (it was 2 degrees when we went out at 6am) and then went back to sleep.

When I got up, I iced his leg. Yesterday he didn't want me near it, but today he said, "Ah, that feels pretty good." It's definitely more swollen today and a bit bruised and when he stands up there's a little bit of fluid around his hock, but this is all normal. At 11am he wanted to go out again and peed. At 11:30 he wanted to go out again. I don't think he needed to go potty so I tried to get him to lie back down but he kept getting up. Finally he went over to the corner and drank some water from the bucket. I have a bucket in the corner so that he can drink standing up, but I also keep a bowl with water in it nearby so that I can offer it to him while he's lying down. Once he finished drinking, he remained standing up, so I figured maybe he wanted to eat lunch standing up. We were a little early, but not that bad, so I got his food and as soon as he saw it he sat down on his bed. I put it on the edge of the bed and ran back upstairs to feed the cat who was screaming at me that I'd forgotten him (he's old and getting a bit senile).

When I came back Winston was lying down and hadn't touched his food. It was cold by then, but I offered him some in my hand and he ate it. I kept trying to get him to eat from the bowl himself but he'd just put his head down so I ended up feeding him the entire bowl by hand and he ate it all. I figured I'd have to give the few pieces left to Josie when he suddenly decided that he'd lick the bowl by himself afterall. Not sure if it's because he doesn't feel good or he was hoping for more canned food. We'll find out at dinner.

After feeding them I put the e-collar back on and tried to grab myself some lunch. He whined a few times while I was upstairs but I couldn't see him so I figured he was still lying down. Once I headed back downstairs to him I found him standing up and whining again. He wanted to go out again. It had been an hour so I took him back out and he peed again and ate some snow. He was pretty restless when we got back inside, but since then has settled back down.