Joey on the Mend

Joey underwent the surgery to repair his torn ACL.  In big dogs, the ACL is not repaired.  Rather, they do something called Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy.  This type of surgery completely alters the dynamics of the knee. Once the bone is cut and the tibial plateau is rotated, where the femur and the tibia communicate, no longer can the femur slide backwards. The knee is immediately stabilized. By doing so, this eliminates the need for the ACL ligament entirely and returns stability to the joint immediately (I cut-and-pasted from the web; google TPLO dog surgery if you want more info).  Needless to say, Joey is doing fine.  The hard part is keeping him from playing and running.  Joey also had a lump removed from his side. 

Post-surgery, I spoke with the dog.  Joey's ACL was completely gone (as we thought), but his meniscus was intact, which is good.  They also took rather wide margins when removing the lump because they wanted to be sure to get everything.  We received word from the lab that the lump was NOT cancerous, which is great news.  Thus, everything went as well as we could expect.

The recovery is the long part.  Joey has to wear the cone-of-shame for two weeks until he gets the staples out.  Fortunately, it's not a hard, plastic code, but one made of fabric.  This way, he can lie down in his normal fashion, and he's not smacking into things when he walks around the house.  Here's a picture of the big guy--I guess the cone also acts as a light blocker.

He's going on walks and is getting around fine.  He's one week into an eight-week recovery process.  By week three, he'll be wanting to play and run, so that'll be the hard part.

Bode and I are off from school today (Veteran's Day observed).  It is pouring rain here--not a mild shower, but a full-day storm.  I guess we'll be inside.  We might watch The Meg on demand.  Pleasant week to all.