It's been ten weeks since Jedi's TPLO surgery! Ten weeks seems like a literal lifetime, but yet I continue to have people remind me that "it's only been ten weeks." This week I put entries in the mail for an agility trial at the end of August, which was hard for me to do given that it seems like we have a long, long road ahead of us before we can even consider that. But then I realize that, given that the trial is 20 weeks post op, we are only halfway through our recovery and rehab to meet that date. Ten more weeks.... How much can change in ten more weeks?!
We are at the stage where I feel like things are changing at a snail's pace. Jedi has been doing well with all of his rehab exercises, but the leg continues to twist and bend in ways that really bother me (cue all of the people who say, "it's only been ten weeks"). At some point I feel like I should make an appointment with a rehab specialist down in Chattanooga just to get another opinion and a plan to move forward. Based on their website it seems like I need a referral to do that, though, so I figure I will wait until our followup appointment next week and ask Dr. Wearing.
As much as I'd hoped that this would be a celebratory "we're rocking it" post for the 10-week mark, we've taken a bit of a step back the last couple of days. It started yesterday, when I had Jedi in his outside pen while I worked Ren through the agility course I had set up for class. We have done this many times with no issues and I have no idea what might have happened, but when I came to collect Jedi for our trip down to the creek he was holding his leg up. As we walked towards the creek he was putting weight on it, but the twist was so bad. We still went down to the creek, but I didn't throw his toy for him. I let him carry it and swim around on his own, mostly to see if he was using his leg (he was). I iced his leg and did an extra light pad session yesterday afternoon. I also gave him some arnica.
Although he seemed to be doing well last night, I'd already planned to keep things low-key today. I kept us to a walk this morning instead of trotting our laps, but something was going on that had all of the dogs going nuts (deer in the thicket, maybe?) which resulted in a LOT of pulling from Jedi. Perhaps because of that, he was favoring his leg again later. I did let him swim today, but for a shorter period, and I cut out our normal p.m. walks. He just seemed very tired this afternoon, and when he's tired the wonky leg is always worse. My guess is that tomorrow morning we'll stick to a walk again. We're still doing the fitness routine for breakfast, too.
Just a short video today, to keep up with the habit. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/9QKY6WDTiFM )
No comments:
Post a Comment