Stella's TPLO Adventure Part 1

Oh, hello! Guess I let this blog fall by the wayside a bit. Life got simultaneously busy and dull and I really felt like I didn’t have anything worth writing for the past few months. I’ve kind of missed it though, so here I am again!

During the holidays, my dog Stella tore the ACL in her right knee. The surgery was waaaay out of my price range so I did my best to lower her activity level until I could find a way to pay for it. Then in January, she tore the left ACL and couldn’t walk at all. My poor baby! Lucky for us, my parents are wonderfully kind and generous and gave me the money for Stella’s surgeries. She had the right leg repaired in January and the left leg this past weekend.

The surgery is called TPLO, or Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy. The surgeon breaks the tibia, turns the proximal, or top, piece around, and screws in a metal plate to reattach the pieces. This changes the knee joint angle and negates the need for an ACL (or technically CCL in dogs). The recovery can be long and frustrating, have you ever told your dog not to walk for days? In preparing for Stella’s first surgery I found a few websites and blogs that gave me a good idea of what to expect plus a sense of security seeing so many success stories. I intended to blog about Stella’s journey, my way to give back or contribute, but got sidetracked somehow. So now that we’re going through it again, I thought I’d blog my way through this second surgery. She survived the first one with grace and I’m hoping this second one will be even easier. Last time, she had a broken leg and an injured leg, now she’s got a broken leg and a leg that’s three months post-op.

So, for those of you who may be interested, here is Stella’s TPLO adventure… (Squeamish readers beware, discussion of bowel movements included)

Stella had her second surgery Saturday afternoon about 2PM. The vet called me about 4:30 to let me know all had gone well and said that Stella was already starting to wake up.  Their office is closed on Sundays but I stopped by to visit her Monday after class. She seemed a little less agitated than last time; although she did cry once I sat down next to her. I scratched her ears and back, frequently itchy spots for her, and that seemed to help. She stopped crying, drank some water and just really relaxed. I think the frustration of not being able to scratch due to the e-collar was her biggest complaint.

Tuesday I picked her up after work, she was already walking albeit with quite a limp. I put her in her pen when we got home, took the e-collar off, and she took a nice long nap while I worked on homework. Later I moved her to my bed and she conked out right away and snored loudly for almost an hour. I guess she didn’t sleep very well at the hospital because she was exhausted! She went out back twice that day, peed both times and pooped once – a small gooey, orangey-brown glob, nothing like her normal poop. For dinner she had white rice with a little shredded cheese and dry dog food mixed in, plus her evening painkiller and antibiotic hidden in a glob of peanut butter. She drank plenty of water, no more or less than usual, and all seemed well.

Tuesday night I slept on the couch to be near her. She fussed a bit when I first put the e-collar on but settled down quickly. Around 3:30AM she started whining so I took her out and she peed again, then came back in and went right back to her pen to sleep. I don’t remember noticing this during the day, but when I took her out at night she peed once, sniffed around as if she was looking for a spot to poop but instead peed again, just a few drops the second time. She did the same thing Wednesday morning and afternoon when we went out, but again no poop.

This evening (Wednesday) just before six, we went out and she did the same two pees, but I noticed that her urine looked red, kinda rusty colored. I panicked of course, I’m no doctor but I know blood in urine is never good. Unfortunately our vet closes at 6PM so we can’t go in right away, I was able to catch them and make an appointment first thing tomorrow morning though. After I hung up, I started Googling, like you do, and I’m a little less freaked now. It looks probable this is a UTI or bladder infection, not fun but not something that’s going to keep me up all night tonight. And since she’s already on antibiotics and painkillers for her knee, I can hope she’s not terribly uncomfortable. Stella is very stoic so it’s hard to tell when she’s in pain, but overall she’s acting totally normal – besides babying her leg a bit. Keeping my fingers crossed the vet gives her a clean bill of health in the morning!