Things continue to move in the right direction. While Jedi does seem to initially come out of his pen a bit stiff-legged in the mornings, he does seem to warm up and walk out of it relatively quickly. Knowing this, I made it a point this morning to take him on one of his 5-minute walks straight away before breakfast. We circled around the edge of the property along the creek and Jedi thoroughly enjoyed taking in all of the sniffs. When we walk he doesn't lift his nose off the ground, although it's a tossup if it's because of smells or his ravenous appetite for dried/mowed grass...
We did our second walk around 10:30 a.m., followed by another session of PT and a nap. I had to make a run into town for some stuff, including Jedi's CBD oil, so I elected to take him along since he seemed to do well in the crate yesterday. Due to a crazy amount of traffic and a long holdup in the checkout at Lowe's, we ended up being gone almost two hours. He was ready to get out and seemed a bit hot. He did have the fan on him yesterday, I'll give him that.
When we got home I dragged out my last and tallest x-pen to set up Jedi's "summer home." The dogs are used to spending a lot of time outside in the summer, just hanging out in the front & back yards while I'm out doing yard work like weed whacking and mowing. I would feel exceptionally guilty to keep Jedi locked inside by himself all of those hours, so I figured I could set him up with an outdoor xpen. It was cool out today, only 60 degrees and overcast, so I put it right out in the middle of the backyard. Going forward I can throw a shade cloth over it on warmer days, but I do figure that Jedi would rather be in the grass than up on the deck or something. We were out there a couple of hours after getting home from running errands. Every time I looked over it looked like Jedi was probably just sleeping. Normally he hangs out under the deck while I'm mowing, though, so not really much different.
Here's our video from today. I may not continue the daily walking video after the two week mark, as there really isn't a lot more progress to report on at the moment. He's walking really well! (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/HjHaAZr5YWs )
Jedi got to go on a field trip today! Today was a Novice/Open day of AKC in Watertown and I had a lot of students making their trial debut. I also had agreed to run one of my student's dogs for her, as she had two dogs in Novice and it would be a lot to handle. This plan was in place before I knew that Jedi would be having surgery. Knowing that there were plenty of concerns surrounding leaving him home and having my mom come deal with his routine, I figured the best plan would be to take Jedi along. He'd be in a crate anyhow, and I would have time to do his PT between classes.
Jedi LOVED having a change of scenery today. He was a very good boy. I had Ren along as well and both boys stayed in the van until after the Novice JWW class was done, probably close to 10:00? I got Jedi out of the van for his first 5 minute walk, which was mostly spent wandering around the pasture eating grass and some cow (?) poop. I brought my big mat along, so we parked there in the shade under a tree for an icing session, massage, and laser. He went back into his crate while I took Ren for a walk and went back into the trial, and then I came out and we did it again around 1:00. He got his Trazodone at 2:00, and we left for home around 3:00. He definitely seems a bit tired out tonight, it was a big day for someone eight days post major surgery I'm sure. I'm glad he enjoyed it and did well, though, because we will be going back on Sunday for when Ren gets to run.
We continue to have improvement in the hip stretch! Jedi is also offering full stretches on his own even more. He seems to do the best following a session with heat vs ice, which makes sense, although he still seems to enjoy the icing more than the heat. This also makes sense given that he seems to live in front of the fan 95% of the time now. That's where he is now, and in the van he was curled up right in front of it every time I checked on him. I wonder if all these meds he's on makes him run hot?
Oh! I almost forgot the biggest news of the day! One one of our walks at the trial Jedi stood all of his weight on the right/bad leg to lift his left leg to pee! My jaw dropped and I couldn't react fast enough to document it. lol That's amazing progress!
Here's our video from today, while walking around the pasture at the trial. You can see his big smile at the end, showing how happy he was to be somewhere different. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/YlqxW_ZBpVM )
We made it a week! Today seemed to be a good day for Jedi. I changed things up again for my walk with Ren & Secret this morning and it seemed to work. Once again Kaiser went into the crate next to Jedi, and I put up the crate screen to block their view outside through the patio door. I gave Jedi a non-frozen lickimat with peanut butter and canned dog food, and then I took Ren and Secret out the FRONT door instead of the patio door. Maybe this worked better for him or maybe Jedi is just accepting things, but when I checked in on him with the camera he stayed settled the whole time. After he finished the mat he just laid down.
The suture line is looking good, especially that top part right at the knee. I got distracted by work stuff following one of our PT sessions this morning and stuck him back in the xpen without his collar on, and when I looked over there a short time later he was licking at it. So I guess that answers that, we're not ready to get rid of the collar yet. I put him in the cone during my class tonight just to be safe.
Today we officially started our five minute walks. We did three of them, and they pretty much consisted of walking down the front fence line and back, followed by a couple of trips up and down the driveway. Jedi has always been terrible on leash and I am concerned about the amount of pulling he's doing. Surely that must put pressure on the hind legs, right? I may have to pull out the head halter to walk him in for a while. That said, he seemed so happy to have a change of pace in his boring daily schedule and also seemed to sleep a bit more today.
Finally, we actually seemed to make some progress on his hip stretches today! For the most part he's still defaulting to clutching his knee into his side when he lays down, but I was able to get him to stretch it out several times today. The main struggle now seems to be his desire to just roll around on the rug on his back grunting. I mean, he does tend to stretch out his leg when he does it, so there is that, but I think he's just trying to get out of PT.
If nothing else, Jedi thinks it's pretty sweet to get canned food 7 times a day... I feel like he's getting practically nothing at dinner time to compensate. It will be interesting to get his weight at the next vet appointment. I took more off of him than I was expecting before surgery, so we have some wiggle room.
Here's our day 7 video. Jedi is still favoring the leg in his pen, but is pretty much using it once we start heading outside. Every now and then he'll go back to three legs outside for some reason, but if I slow him down enough he'll start using it again. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/GMDW0wovXoU )
I also decided to compile our first week progress into one video so that I can better appreciate how far we've come already. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/Fk2gtvPPgpY )
We've made it to day 6! For the most part it's been a very quiet day. It started out a little sad, though. We got up a bit after 6:00, went out, had breakfast, did PT, and all was well. I put Kaiser in the crate next to Jedi and took Ren & Secret out for their morning walk. I left Jedi with a frozen lickimat drizzled with honey again. When I checked on video all was well, but Jedi didn't spend much time with the mat. He seemed pretty subdued when I returned from walking Ren & Secret. I planned to swap out dogs and take Kaiser & Kizzy out for a short walk since they have literally done nothing since Jedi came home, but when Jedi refused a treat (and had almost the entire lickimat left) I opted to stay in the house to watch him.
It wasn't too long before he was due for his 8:00 a.m. dose of Gabapentin. I have never had any issues with him taking treats, canned food, or anything else I offer him, so this was pretty surprising. Clearly we can't miss any doses of Gabapentin, though, so I popped his mouth open, put the meatball in, and held his muzzle shut until he swallowed it. He sat oddly in the pen for probably the next thirty minutes, staring into space and not looking at me. Then he laid down and took a nap, and by the time 9:00 a.m. rolled around and it was time for his pheno he was happy to take food again. I'm starting to think he was just really depressed when he got left inside yet again for the walk. I don't know any other way to handle that situation, though.
Here's the suture line today. For some reason I feel like it looks really bad in the picture, like it's splitting open or something. I really didn't think it looked that bad in person. The area where the skin looks like it's coming apart is totally dry, so it is not giving me any concern. I am using the laser directly over the suture line now, so we'll see if that promotes rapid healing.
Getting Jedi to flex his leg out from the hip continues to be a challenge and a half. I swear he is clutching that knee into his flank harder every time we sit down to do our PT stuff. He is still randomly stretching it to full extension on his own accord, so I am hesitant to believe that he's protecting it because it hurts. In working with his other leg, and while doing Ren's stretches last night, I did realize that my hand position for getting the hip flexion is usually right over his suture line. I'm probably going to be goosey about putting my hand there for a bit yet. In order to be able to actually get the laser to the suture line I rolled Jedi over and put him between my legs like we do for his nail trims. While in that position I was able to get him to extend his leg out a fair bit, and he stopped clutching it in tightly. I guess we'll do it that way for a while.
I put everyone but Jedi outside while I cleaned the yard this afternoon and left Jedi with a Kong that had some canned dog food and peanut butter in it. He seemed to do fine with me going out this time and was very into the Kong. As I was circling around the back yard I pulled up my web cam and saw that Jedi had his front leg trapped through the opening of his blow up collar! Thank goodness I checked, because I was planning on staying outside and working Ren a bit. I ran in the house to save him and he seemed fine. I rolled the video back and thankfully he wasn't in that position too long, and he didn't do anything bad that would have hurt the leg. I apologized to him and gave him a bit more peanut butter on the lickimat when I left him again, and this time he was fine with that. Maybe he doesn't like the frozen stuff....
This afternoon I was reviewing some of the rehab documents I've been collecting online, mostly wondering when I was supposed to start adding in more walking. I've been limiting our trips outside to potty only, and then right back inside. A couple of different sources that I have state that you really only need to strictly limit for the first few days, and by the end of the first week you should be able to do 5 minutes comfortably. We just wandered around the yard a little bit more today. Starting tomorrow I think I'll take him out of the yard. The agility ring might be a little too exciting to start with, maybe some trips back and forth along the driveway.... I also started adding the moist heat to a couple of our sessions. Jedi seems to prefer icing, but did better with the heat when I put a washcloth between the bag and his skin. I didn't think it seemed that warm, but he also has no hair to buffer it. There are bits and pieces growing back in, though!
Here's our video from today. He's still favoring the leg when he's in his pen and when he first comes out, but seems to be walking on it well once he starts to use it. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/5TFn9jH682Q )
What a difference a day makes. Yay for drugs. We got the Gabapentin prescription filled last night and Jedi got a dose on board around 8:00 p.m. I still had him sleep in the cone last night, but the Gabapentin pretty much knocked him out cold and he got some much needed rest. He has stopped going after his leg now, so today he was able to move back into the blow up collar. I don't think I've seen him try to reach around it once today. He's been so much more settled.
Someone from the vet clinic called to check in on us this morning. I'm guessing there was some note about me being frantic and calling three times yesterday. Marla assured me that they would give me any refills that I needed going forward. This made me feel better, because I'm pretty terrified of what life will be like when everything runs out after two weeks. The Gabapentin prescription was changed from every 8 hours to every 12 hours, but it seems to be effective enough at this interval. Marla kept trying to say that we could experiment with a lower dose, but I'm pretty okay with knocking Jedi out for a good month.
We're getting four PT sessions in per day right now. I've eliminated the one right before bed because I've just been so tired. Tonight will be no different given that I had a bit of a reaction to the Covid vaccination overnight. At least while I was awake in the middle of the night I got to appreciate that Jedi was totally relaxed and sleeping belly up in his pen.
Jedi still continues to guard his leg from doing hip flexion exercises, but he will willingly stretch it out fully on his own randomly. He's always been a bit resistant and tight about that right hind. I'm spending more time just focusing on massaging there, which encourages him to stretch it out on his own. PROM exercises with the hip just aren't going to happen right now.
Here's our video from today. Jedi is still largely holding his leg up in his pen, but he's doing well using it outside. (Link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/R0jZePuG6XM )
I'm not going to sugar coat anything, today has been a struggle.
Jedi was sent home with three days of Gabapentin. I've seen others say that they had at least two weeks of that drug, which serves to deaden nerve pain and also kicks them down a notch - especially when combined with the Trazodone. Our last dose of Gabapentin was given when we went to bed last night. Things have gotten progressively more difficult as the day has gone on.
Apology/no apology for the above photo. I purposefully included a shot of Jedi's neuter site. Ha! It is not giving me any concern and I don't think is bothering him. Hooray for that.
Here's the inside of the leg today with the incision line. I realize these things don't heal overnight and I need to be careful to set realistic expectations on progress. I'm sure this is fine. I did spend a good portion of our last laser session aiming it at the incision line for the first time. Until now I've focused on the top of the knee since I've always continued icing during the laser treatment. Time to see if the laser can work its magic on the incision.
The hock is looking great. I think I only used the laser on that in our first treatment this morning.
Just showing the chicken leg from the side. The swelling has definitely come down.
Okay, on with the tale of our day with no Gabapentin on board. This morning went fine. We got up a bit after 6:00 and took care of business outside. Back inside, everyone got breakfast, Jedi got his morning meds, and we did his first therapy session of the day. I put Jedi into the crate with his blow up collar on and gave him the other frozen lickimat from the freezer, but this time I drizzled some honey on it. It served its purpose much better today and seemed to keep Jedi occupied for a good portion of our walk, so I went ahead and made up more mats for the freezer again. I will have to get some Kongs ready one of these days... At any rate, he was great during the walk and stayed quiet in the crate.
I had an appointment for my second Covid shot at 10:00 a.m., so I was going to have to leave the house for the first time since Jedi came home from surgery. I left him in the xpen with his plastic cone on, since he seems to be getting better about getting around the collar. I checked in on my phone a few times and he seemed fine, but didn't rest. In the future I will crate Kaiser next to him when I leave, because I think Kaiser's pacing around the house while I'm gone makes things much worse.
My main concern about leaving is not the part about being gone. It's the coming home part. My dogs always go nuts when I come home, no matter how hard I work to keep it boring and uneventful. I had my camera pulled up on my phone as I pulled in the garage and the dogs started going nuts. I left everything in the van and ran around to come in the patio door, figuring I could make eye contact sooner and make everyone settle. I came in and just went straight to the couch to sit down until everyone settled. Thank goodness Jedi did not jump up during all of this, but I cannot risk leaving him in the xpen when I leave in the future. Here's video of that adventure (link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/q3EKj81KooA ).
Another struggle we've had today is with Jedi's PROM exercises. He has been guarding his leg by tucking it hard into his flank. I can do flexions with the ankle and knee, but he will not release his leg to let me extend the hip. Randomly he will sometimes stretch the leg back on his own, but I finally gave up trying to do that exercise today.
In general, Jedi just has not settled today. I have not been able to let him wear the blow up collar at all because he is insisting on trying to get to his leg. He whips his head around like something is zinging him and tries to get at it. He still does it in the cone, but he can't get to anything. I finally called the vet's office at 4:30 to ask for more Gabapentin, at least a two week supply. It took until after 7:00 p.m. for them to call it in because they were so backed up and Dr. Wearing wasn't in today. I had to send my dad to get it a bit ago because, well, I clearly can't leave. I'm hoping things improve again with that on board.
Finally, here's our video from today. Poor Jedi really struggled with the bees outside today, he really hates them and didn't want to walk at first. He always comes out holding his leg up at first, but he is starting to use it once we're out there. I really need my last carpet runner to arrive, though, because he is trying to scramble on the bare bits of floor between rugs. (Link for mobile: https://youtu.be/mrDg-UgwvcI )
We're on day number three following Jedi's TPLO surgery and I feel like we are progressing very well. Jedi is pictured here with the new, larger blow up collar that we got yesterday. His neck is 15" and this one is sized for 20-27", I think. It's much better than the last one, but he's still able to bend around a bit more than I'd like. We're compromising, though. He gets to wear this one when I'm in the house because it takes enough effort for him to reach his back end that I notice it and can stop him. When I have to leave the house then I put the cone back on. We both slept a lot better last night and he definitely seems to prefer the comfort of the collar over the cone.
Therapy takes a good 30 minutes each time we do it, which is still averaging every four hours. I am making the most of it and multi-tasking when I can. In the above picture I'm using the light pad on his hip because he's been super tight there while doing his stretching exercises, I'm using the cold laser on the knee, and I'm icing the underside of the knee and his hock (where the swelling is).
Our routine is to come out of the crate, lay down (right side up), and then ice top & bottom of the knee while I use the laser on the swollen hock for 10 minutes. Then I remove the ice and switch to massage, which morphs into the PROM exercises. Then I finish with the above, using the laser for another 10 minutes on the knee.
This morning I gave Jedi a lickimat while I took the other dogs for their walk. I put a couple of mats in the freezer last night (combo of peanut butter, yogurt, and pumpkin) with the thought process being that if they were frozen they would last longer. Uh, nope. Jedi went at it with his teeth and was able to get it off in large chunks, so that didn't work as planned. It didn't keep him occupied for very long at all. I was watching him on my Wyze cam while I was out with Ren and while we were still on our first lap I was pretty uncomfortable about Jedi's behavior. He was upset, in the corner of the pen facing the door, and barking. He's not one to ever jump out of a pen, but I just didn't want to risk anything. I came back into the house and moved him into the crate. He was quiet and settled for the rest of our walk. I also left the view to the outside open, which I had blocked earlier thinking that would help. Guess not.
I taught an agility lesson at 11:00 a.m. Typically I lock all of the dogs in the bedroom, but I elected to instead put Kaiser into the crate next to Jedi to keep him company. I don't think it would be a good idea to put them in the xpen together, but this idea seemed to work well. They both stayed nice and quiet during my lesson. Since it was going so well, I left everyone where they were and took Ren outside to work him. Jedi is not generally a fan of being left out of the fun so I have been hesitant to do anything with Ren since bringing Jedi home, but we didn't have any problems and Jedi stayed quiet the whole time. Thank goodness Kaiser doesn't mind hanging out in crates, we'll use this a lot going forward.
I think that the swelling has gone down some today, but most notably the heat is leaving his leg. It's been quite warm to the touch since coming home, even following an icing session. Today it's feeling quite normal and cold after icing, so that's good. The hock is still a bit squishy, but it doesn't seem as bad as yesterday. I think the laser focused in that area is probably helping.
Jedi is gaining a lot more confidence in his leg and is also starting to come out of his post-surgery fog a bit more (despite still being on Gabapentin and Trazodone). He's becoming a bit more of a handful on the way outside and wanting to move around more when we're out there. This is only going to get progressively more difficult, I'm sure. I'm using a leather leash on him to discourage the biting/tugging behavior that he does on his fleece leash and I can tell that this upset him today when he wanted to tug. lol Sorry buddy, not for a while yet. That will be part of our physical therapy down the road.
The incision still looks good. I think it looks a little "angrier" in this photo today, but then I just realized that it's the difference between the main camera on my phone (what this is from) vs the front-facing camera (the selfi-mode that I've used for the other shots of the inside of the knee). I have started to wipe down the frozen packs of peas after use, though, figuring it's not a good thing for them to get dirty and be up against his wound.
Finally, here's our day 3 video. This is from our trip outside around 2:30 p.m. (Link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/d0rLfaDQppU )
For the record, this particular blow-up collar lasted pretty much long enough to take a picture. As soon as I left him in it, Jedi proceeded to investigate his neuter, and quite easily I might add. I'd been warned that a "correctly-sized" blow up collar would not do the job. Oh well. Back in the box it went and my parents were able to take it back to Pet Supplies Plus for me this afternoon. I had them swing by Petco to buy a larger model, but I haven't had the chance to take it out of the box to try it yet. We'll see. He's really doing well in the plastic cone, but he does scrape and clang it against the xpen some while he's trying to get comfortable.
To backtrack quickly, Jedi seems to be healing quite well from his neuter. When Kaiser was done at age 3 1/2 there was a lot of swelling and discomfort. I remember holding him belly-up on the couch with a bag of peas on his boy bits. So far I'm not seeing any swelling there for Jedi. The fact that he gets a bag of peas between his legs to ice the bottom of his knee probably isn't hurting that situation any. And of course, the limited mobility, which is why I opted to do it now.
Jedi is doing well and resting comfortably. He seems to really enjoy our icing sessions, which average about every four hours and include massage, PROM, and about 10 minutes with the cold laser. I feel like there was a bit more swelling noticed today, and some of it is starting to pool around his hock joint (something I learned was common in one of the videos I found on YouTube). With the additional swelling, it's not surprising that he's been a little more resistant to fully extend his leg today.
The suture line is looking great. Let's hope it stays that way. I try to avoid touching it when we're doing our PROM exercises, but Jedi hasn't seemed sensitive to it.
We've had poop! Twice! We went out just after 3:00 a.m. and had success on that trip. I did go ahead and open a can of pumpkin with breakfast because I figure it can't hurt. We had another successful trip around 3:00 p.m., so things seem to be moving along just fine.
The chiropractor was here for his regular visit today, but we elected to give Jedi a bit more time to get stable on his feet before his next adjustment. I'll be making the trip to Gallatin in a couple of weeks instead. Hopefully we are closer to weight-bearing by then.
Sleeping on the air mattress in the living room isn't the most fun experience, but I still think it's the best for Jedi right now. Kizzy seemed to like it well enough!
Here's our video from day 2. The video yesterday and today were both taken following his afternoon dose of meds, so I do think that likely contributes to the additional use of the leg. When we went out around noon I'm not sure if he put it down at all. (Link for mobile users: https://youtu.be/ADGt8Oxkfqo )
Time to use the blog for yet another purpose! It's been blessedly free of updates since Jedi's seizures started in January. Thankfully we have not experienced another seizure since starting on phenobarbital. Sadly 2021 has hit us with another blow as Jedi went in for TPLO surgery on 4/8/21. Today was his first day home and I'm going to use the blog to track his recovery so that I can better appreciate the day-to-day progress. My goal is to post incision pictures and video of his gait daily, to a point yet to be determined.
The story of how this came about.... On February 24 I ran Jedi through a UKI course in training (https://youtu.be/o8NxFaa0nL8). Later that evening, when he'd been napping after dinner, he got up from his bed and was holding up his right hind. On that occasion he persisted in favoring the leg into the next day. I put him on leash for several days and stopped training for a couple of weeks.
On Monday, March 8 he ran around like a loon on our morning walk, far more than usual. He'd been off leash restriction for some time and was not having any problems. Later that morning he rose from his nap favoring the leg again. This time he seemed to walk out of it. We were entered in an AKC trial that weekend so I put him back on leash again for a couple of days. He was free to run by the end of the week and was doing fine again, so I elected to go to the trial. I limited his runs to one trial per day, though (it was the double trial format), so as to not overdo it. On Saturday all was well, but on Sunday he was favoring the leg slightly when we got out of the van after returning home.
I really thought, by the way he was moving, that it was his hip or pelvis. I texted his chiropractor on Sunday and we were able to get an appointment for Tuesday, March 16. It was Dr. Vear who suggested that what I was describing sounded like a CCL injury, but he was not able to get motion when he attempted the drawer test on the knee. I came home and made an appointment with our vet, although we unfortunately had to wait two weeks until April 1 when the ortho specialist would be available. I rested Jedi until the Tuesday before the appointment, when I ran him through the NAC finals course to purposely try to "break him" before his appointment, since he'd been fine the whole time (https://youtu.be/ILVw2VWlWUY).
We went in last Thursday and knocked Jedi out for xrays. While he was still out, Dr. Wearing showed me the movement in the knee (much more obvious on an unconscious patient) and said that the xrays showed signs of inflammation, so we were definitely dealing with a CCL tear of some degree.
Surgery was scheduled for the first available time, which was one week out. I dropped Jedi off yesterday morning at 7:30 a.m.
Dr. Wearing called at 4:45 p.m. to update me that surgery had gone very well. Jedi's tear was right along the edge of the tibial plateau and blessedly his meniscus was still entirely intact. This should bode very well for his future performance after healing and rehabilitation. Often times people wait too long for surgery, or there is some traumatic incident, and the meniscus gets shredded. I was very happy that we moved forward quickly with surgery.
I picked Jedi up around 2:00 p.m. today after receiving our discharge instructions. I've been doing a lot of research online and have joined some helpful groups on Facebook, so thankfully I was already prepared with a plan. This is good, because they really didn't cover anything about therapy or rehab at all (I did get a handout prior to surgery).
I had to drop a prescription off for Trazodone on the way home, and they also sent me home with Deramaxx, Gabapentin, and Cephalexin to be given over the next two weeks. Unfortunately Dr. Wearing is out of the office during the standard two-week follow up appointment, so we will not be going back until week three. Jedi does not have any visible sutures or staples, though, so at least that is not a concern. I didn't expect that at all, as I have not seen pictures shared online of hidden suture lines. That's pretty neat, although we do still need to be very careful about not letting Jedi get at it. He's been doing really well in the plastic cone that he was sent home in, so I have left that on him for now. I do have an inflatable collar that I may try on him tomorrow to see if it allows him to reach the incision. It would be nice to transition him to that because he cannot reach his water bucket wearing the cone.
Things have been going well since we got home. Jedi drank a whole bucket of water when I first put him in the pen, so I knew we'd have to go out sooner rather than later (I cannot imagine this dog only going out the 4-5 times a day they recommend, he goes out practically hourly most days....). I gave him his afternoon pain meds and he took a nap while those kicked in. About 45 minutes later we went outside for another potty break, he got his Trazodone that my parents were able to pick up for me, and then we started our first session of icing and PROM exercises around 4:00 p.m. I went very slow and didn't want to push anything for the first time, but Jedi didn't have any objections.
I fed dinner a bit later than usual because Jedi was sleeping again. We ate a little after 6:00 p.m. Then we went outside for another potty trip, then back in for more icing and PROM. I pushed a little bit more this time and Jedi did have some slight resistance to straightening out the knee, so I again kept it slow and gentle. There is no resistance to bending it. The hock is also fine, as well as the hip. I included a 15 minute cold laser session (which we are blessedly borrowing from a friend) and followed up with one more session of icing. I am going to need to pick up some more frozen peas to make sure I always have a frozen set on hand. I have read that you cannot do too much icing right now, so we're going to go nuts with it.
I have pulled out the air mattress and plan to sleep in the living room until Jedi is out of the cone/donut. I can fit his crate in my bedroom, but I think it's easier on him to have the extra space of the xpen while wearing something on his head. We can move back into the bedroom in a couple of weeks, hopefully.
Here is our day 1 video. I do have a sling that I'm using to get him in and out of the house (yay for having a ramp off the front steps, too!), but I obviously have to remove it for him to go potty. (Link for mobile users, since embedded video doesn't seem to work: https://youtu.be/wtQIMqfImCk )
With any luck we'll get poop eventually, although I imagine that will be
a struggle for him right now. I'll remember to open a can of pumpkin to
go with breakfast tomorrow. He had quite the appetite for dinner, so
that was good! He got to eat dinner out of a regular bowl tonight. Once he's more stable I'll return him to his slow feeder to draw it out a bit more, and I have a few puzzle feeders on hand as well. My goal is to not let him gain weight during this process, as that can mess with how effective his seizure meds are. He had gotten up to 41 lbs, but I cut his food back over the last month and now he's at 38 lbs, so we have some wiggle room.
I plan to do one more icing and PROM session before bed tonight. And who knows, maybe again in the middle of the night since I probably won't sleep.
I think where this blog is concerned, no news is good news! Or great news, really! Jedi has been doing fabulously well over these last several weeks. He has now gone over a month without another seizure since his diagnosis and starting pheno. There is nothing that would lead anyone to believe that there is anything wrong whatsoever.
We drove to Indianapolis last Saturday to attend one day of a USDAA trial. This was Jedi's first trial since his diagnosis, so I didn't know what to expect. I was definitely nervous about the traveling, as it's almost five hours each way. The trial schedule was such that we could drive up the morning of, play in a few classes, and drive home. I definitely wasn't ready to add a hotel stay into our routine yet.
Jedi rocked it! He was a little nuts in Master Standard for his first run, but we found our groove after that. He ended up winning Grand Prix (!!), winning Relay, and he had the fastest time in Steeplechase. He still managed third place even with a call on the a-frame.
I supplemented Jedi with honey between runs to avoid any sort of blood sugar crash (if there is such a thing to worry about, still just covering my bases). There were no issues with energy levels at the trial, but I would say Jedi definitely seemed pretty tired by the time we got home around 7:00 p.m. that night. He was completely recovered by the following day, but I did wonder how that would bode for our three days of USDAA agility this weekend -- his birthday weekend!
Friday was team day. I didn't enter Jedi in team at this trial because of everything that's been going on and the uncertainty of everything when it was time to put teams together. Thankfully they were also offering Biathlon and one round of Master Snooker as well, so Jedi got to play in those classes. We had one small bobble in B.Standard (well, it was still an E) but came back to nail B.Jumpers with a clean run. I had a great plan in Snooker, but it didn't work out. Ha!
I didn't feel like Jedi was nearly as tired Friday night as he was following the trial day last weekend, so that's great! He had four runs yesterday (Standard, Gamblersx2, and Grand Prix) and while unfortunately we didn't Q in any of them, he was still running great and had no issues with recovery.
Today the trial ended up being canceled due to icy road conditions, so we stayed home and threw a birthday party! Thankfully I picked up his cake on the way home yesterday, so we still got to have a proper celebration. Happy Birthday Jedi! Hopefully we get to do more fun stuff this year!
