FHO + 2 weeks

I think in my previous post, I ended with our good news of her walking stretch.... She ended up having about 3 of those, then back to holding it up and not even toe touching. Now she has slowly increased to toe touching and kinda bunny hopping with both back legs and the left one just touching.

Yesterday we had our first rehab appointment and she is a little behind. They had her work a bit on the land treadmill forwards and backwards - she's not a fan of backwards. We also worked on some adversion techniques (shoe, cap on the good foot), crawling, stretches, range of motion exercises while applying pressure to the thigh bone ends, and laser treatment.

The adversion techniques were pretty unsuccessful, it seems she's really determined that she doesn't really need to use that leg :-(... but we'll keep trying to see what is her thing. She does seem to do a little better with distractions, so we're seeking out squirrels, birds, and dogs for our rehab walks.

We go again on Tuesday - so we'll work on stretching, ROM, and trying to find ways to get her to use her leg.

I'll try to add a video this weekend.

Here's a video from this past Tuesday: Day 11

Fingers crossed!


M

6 days after FHO Surgery

6 Days after......

So the last post was one week out... it just so happened that about 5 days after writing that post, we took Clewie to play with her friend at a field/ hike location.  As her friend was joining her, she took off to the field to play with a group of dogs there.    As they were romping and we were moving them away from the field for some private hiking time with her friend Yahtzee, she was rolled by one of the bigger dogs.... but she got up... and played a little more as we worked our way to the hike.   

As we started we noticed she was 3 legged for the most part.... so we soon said by to Yahtzee and brought Clewie home to rest.  We thought she had just pulled something like previous and went about our day and she rested in her crate.

I was able to head home a little early (about 4ish) and when I got home, immediately noticed she was having pain tremors..... so after a call to the vet, rushed her in.  She got a very nice pain shot and they took some xrays.  She had rebroken the femer completely and the bone had shifted slightly.  She couldn't wait a week for surgery (by this time her surgery had been postponed on additional week)... our vet contacted a couple of surgeons and she was soon scheduled for the next evening.

So, we had a Fentenyl patch applied that night and upped her tramadol to make it through the evening.  The next day, she was pretty uncomfortable, so I brought her into the surgery center so that she could get hooked up on IV fluids, pain meds and prepped for surgery.

Friday night about 8pm, we got a call from her surgeon that Clewie's surgery was successful, she did great - no complications.  

Saturday morning around 8am we got a call from the overnight vet at the hospital that Clewie was being antsy and wanted to go home.  So we picked her up and brought her home about 9am and basically since then she's been resting except for about 4 walks a day to go to the bathroom.  The started about 5 min in length while she was still holding up her leg.  She started taking a step every once in a while (less than 10 total in a day) on the bad leg since Sunday.

Yesterday, she got a number of steps in a row (like around 15) - twice on a walk.  So we started extending her walks to closer to 10 minutes.  She doesn't walk the whole time... she ambles, eating grass, laying and rolling around on the ground, trying to get people to come to her to give her attention.

Here is a video of her walking - she did this twice.  Most of the rest of the time she holds it up and maybe uses it for a step every little bit.

Clewie day 5 walking

I wish she did this more.. but our vet says in time she'll build confidence and do it more.  We have our first appointment with a rehab place next Thursday...

But I hope to put up another update before then.

melissa 

one week to surgery

I'm going to attempt to document Clewie's FHO surgery and recover here.

A little background on Clewie... we adopted her about 6 weeks ago.  She's about a year old, 35 lbs, a pitbull mix.  Shortly after bringing her home we started to notice that she would sometimes hold up her left leg .  And the thigh muscle was atrophied compared to her right strong well defined thigh.

At her initial visit with the vet and after an xray, we learned that she had a previous trauma to her femer and needed surgery, our vet recommended a FHO.

Fortunately the shelter we adopted her from agreed to help up out with the cost of the surgery.  So we proceeded to set up a consult with their surgeon.  The downside is between all the coordination and us getting a second opinion from another surgeon, it took another month until we could actually schedule the FHO.

But here we are now, a week away from the big day and I'm scared.

I downloaded a copy of a rehab guide from Top dog health and have started teaching her some exercises which will be part of her rehab:

• sit
• down
• spin right
• spin left
• heel exercises
• laying down with the weight of a cooling pack

We've been bringing her to play so she can enjoy herself this last week.  Today, Greg called me to let me know how Clewie was doing.  She had a play date with Cleo the day before yesterday for about an hour, then yesterday she played at the beach for about 40 minutes, then today had a 30 min playdate with Yahtzee.  She's paying the price and limping today.  Just a reminder that we really need to get her hip taken care of.  

It's silly to hope it's the right decision when I know she can't be on drugs her whole life, and even that doesn't keep her from being in pain.  She's on Rimadyl twice a day now and Tramadol when she limps.