TPLO Day 140 (20 weeks)

Week 19 got skipped because I'd done a post earlier in the week, but also because I was on the road to Ohio for the weekend. I learned that it's really hard to stick with a solid rehab program while traveling.... Our hotel room also had laminate flooring throughout the room, so I was loathe to do anything there. I actually ended up stopping at Walmart and picked up a couple of yoga mats to at least help with the on/off the bed situation.

I brought Jedi inside once a day at the trial to work on rehab stuff. I'd packed along his balance disc, figuring we could use that for pivot work and weight shift exercises. We also were able to fit in one decent walk per day, but definitely far less than what we do on a usual day.

Unfortunately Jedi's routine has continued to be disrupted because I brought a puppy home with us from Ohio! Not surprisingly, puppies take up a lot of time and we've modified our daily routine a bit. We're still doing the 8-lap morning walk, but we haven't done hills all week (the fact that it's 90+ degrees isn't helping that). We've also only gone swimming once.

I wish I could say that I've noticed an improvement in the pivot shift, but I haven't. It's still there. If there's anything good it's that the Deramaxx seems to have at least made Jedi more comfortable.

We're at a trial in Murfreesboro this weekend, but our days are short since Jedi was supposed to be running and I only entered the regular classes. Then we're back in Ohio next weekend.

Here's the video from this week: (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/qq0522wtSqQ )

TPLO Day 130 - 1st Rehab Appointment

Today Jedi and I drove just under two hours for our first rehab visit with Cassie at VCA RIVER in Chattanooga. I can't say there were any big epiphanies or anything, but it is nice to have someone to work with through this. I wish we had this service a bit closer to home because I would certainly sign on for weekly visits, but I did commit to going every other week for a package of five visits. We will go back on Monday the 30th, which will also allow us to talk to Dr. Wearing while he is there to discuss our next steps with medication.

Jedi found a tennis ball shortly after we arrived, so it instantly became his favorite place on earth. He was less thrilled when he had to lay down to have his knee lasered, probably just because the ball wasn't involved. He also got to do 10 minutes in the underwater treadmill. He wasn't sure of it at first, but it didn't take long before he was happily walking along with the tennis ball in his mouth. It was interesting to see that except for a time or two, he really didn't have the twist in his leg while walking in the water.

Cassie is hopeful that we can have him back for the October trial in Franklin, which would give us one trial before Cynosport. Fingers crossed. We were sent home with a bunch of exercises, which I will post here. Truly, a lot of this is going to return us to the very early, most basic rehab stuff that is recommended after TPLO. It is entirely possible that I did not spend enough time on the "simple stuff" like weight shifting the first time around. Tonight we did weight shifting with the hind end on the disc, with both front and hind end on unstable surfaces (brought in the bone for the rear), and the leg lifts. I was surprised at how much Jedi still resists the diagonal two-legged stand. That's pretty telling, I guess. Oh, we also tried the "dancing," which he absolutely hated, so I'm guessing that was hard for him as well.

Here are screenshots of everything we were sent home to work on the next two weeks. She didn't prescribe anything done in any sort of order, claiming they all more or less are going to work on the same thing. We are supposed to spend 15-20 minutes a couple times a day.

TPLO Day 127 (vet visit)

As planned, we met with Dr. Wearing this morning to discuss a plan forward for Jedi. The first thing we did was go outside so that he could see Jedi's gait in person. I was prepared with video because he usually doesn't wobble if he's pulling on leash at all, and, well, he pulls on leash a lot. Our appointment was at 8:20, though, and we had done our usual morning walk, so he wasn't super crazy and his leg did wobble for us.

Dr. Wearing said that he is familiar with this and has treated it in the past. The poor man had to listen to me rant and rave about everything I've been doing and how it's not working at all. He manipulated Jedi's leg a bit and confirmed that there is inflammation.

We were sent home with a larger dose of Deramaxx -- I'll be giving half of a 75mg tablet for the next few weeks, which is pretty much the max dose for his size. I also have an appointment with the rehab specialist that Dr. Wearing works with in Chattanooga on Monday morning. I am looking forward to having someone put their hands on him and define which muscles we need to build up and hopefully come up with a plan. It is likely that we'll meet up with Dr. Wearing again down in Chattanooga at the end of the month since I will be traveling on the days when he's at our clinic.

Dr. Wearing said he is "cautiously optimistic" that we can resolve this without resorting to surgery, but that's always an option. He did not seem to have any concerns that the meniscus is involved, though. We'll see how the PT appointment goes.

TPLO Day 126 (18 weeks)

I sure do wish that I had better news to report after 18 weeks of recovery following Jedi's TPLO surgery in April. Unfortunately we are just stuck... Or sadly, even going backwards.

We spent the weekend at an agility trial in Murfreesboro (no worries, we weren't entered in that one, so didn't have to pull) and I spoke with a few people who have gone through the recovery process with their dogs. One person mentioned that her dog was not recovering very well, so they put him on Deramaxx for a few weeks and it really helped him to turn a corner.

With that in mind (planning to make him comfortable), I let Jedi do some agility on Tuesday after setting up the course for class that morning. I ran him through the "baby" course from Monday with no bars and low contacts. After the new course was set, I let him do pieces of it with the bars at 20". It was really no more than a couple minutes of work. It is grossly hot this week, so we went down to the creek to swim for a few minutes after. Everything seemed fine.

As usual, Jedi went ripping up out of the creek bottom well ahead of me. He usually runs and throws himself into a roll to dry off. When I got up to the top I saw that he just looked off. He was crouched by the fence like he didn't want to move at all, like everything hurt. He had to poop and seemed to be trying very hard to avoid it. The first thing that went through my head was that he blew the other leg. Who knows, maybe he did. He just moved so awkwardly as we made our way back to the house.

I hit him up with a Deramaxx as planned, although I had not expected the soreness to hit him until later, like it usually does. He did get better as the day went on. I gave him another one for dinner and I have been giving him one at each meal since.

I called the vet's office on Tuesday to see if I could get in for a recheck with Dr. Wearing. We are going in tomorrow morning to discuss our options and come up with a plan. I am okay with the conservative route of "let's drug him for a few weeks and see if that gets him using the leg enough to stabilize it," but I'm also prepared for, "This sounds like we need surgery again." And of course, there's still the dreaded possibility of the other leg needing to be done, because I have no idea what that behavior was about.

So we have that appointment in the morning, and then the chiropractor is here on Saturday. I am really hoping that one way or another we can move forward again. I'm still waiting to hear from Dr. Eide's team about getting on the schedule. Here's today's video (link for mobile: https://youtu.be/viVQf4LHEyo )

TPLO Day 119 (17 weeks)

I forgot to get a picture for today's post, so this is what you get. Jedi has assumed his usual position of sleeping under the table until we go to bed. This is actually pretty good, usually he's wedged through the rungs of one of the chairs.

I had our pre-consultation with a member of Dr. Eide's team on Monday as scheduled. No surprise, our "20 minute call" quickly doubled in time, but I was just so thankful that someone was finally listening to me and acknowledging our struggles. I shared our history and it sounds like we're going to move forward with scheduling a 90-minute consult with Dr. Eide to come up with a plan. Unfortunately she's currently serving jury duty, so we have to wait until that wraps up to actually schedule something. Until I hear back from them, I'm just going to continue with what we're doing.

I actually feel like maybe there has been some progress this week. Don't get me wrong, the leg still wobbles, but maybe just a little bit less? I've modified our routine slightly in that I keep Jedi on leash for the first five laps, and then when I bring the old dogs out for the last three laps I am letting Jedi off leash. The three leashes just wasn't working well.... I am keeping him to a walk and trot off leash, although I'm thrilled to report that I've actually seen him lope on the right lead a time or two this week. He gets to be off leash again for the after-class walk in the evenings and is being a good boy. I keep him on leash for the hill work to control his speed for that, although he seems to hate hill work and drags a bit going up hill. Me, too, buddy....

I've backed off on agility stuff for the most part. I've let him play a little while I'm setting stuff up, and that's about it. Monday was my first night of a new session of contacts class, so everything was set very low. I let Jedi go over everything, including his running a-frame. Everything looked fine, but he definitely seemed sore later on. A couple of days later we did some jump wraps for his toy and he seemed to actually hold up well to that with no gimping later on.

I pulled Jedi from the AKC trial in Ohio that I'd stuck him in on August 20/21 (19 weeks post-op). I haven't pulled entries for the trials the next two weekends yet and figure we'll go day by day on those and pull on the closing date if need be.

Here is today's video. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/VgMl-25_As8 )