Haley has had a bit of a rough week...she started having daily seizures Christmas day so after the 4th one Russ and I decided she needed to go to the vet to possibly get a higher dose of her meds. So I took her in Monday morning and the Dr. did decide to up her meds. She has still had a couple seizures since but the vet said within 2 weeks we should see improvement.
The more alarming and more stressful side to this is that while we were at the vet I also had her check her range of motion for her back right knee. For as long as we can remember Haley has had a tendency to limp after a busy day of playing but lately she will limp around the house when she hasn't been exercised at all. After talking with the vet we decided we needed to do some x-rays on her hips and knees to find out what is really going on. This was scheduled for Tuesday.
The good news out of all of this is that her hips are in great shape. However, the x-rays did show that she has most likely torn her cruciate ligaments or what we would call the ACL in humans. Poor girl! She most likely has had a small tear in them for awhile and we think while at Russ's parents a couple weeks ago she tore the ligaments all the way.
So...we take her to an orthopedic vet next Thursday morning. He will look over the x-rays and decide which surgery she needs. It will most likely be a surgery called a TPLO which will replace her ligaments completely. While we have heard positive outcomes for this surgery it still makes me anxious to put her through all of that. She will be on a strict recovery for at least 6-8 weeks but should recover completely and have a much better quality of life once she is healed. The bad side to this is that it likely to happen in her other back leg eventually...so Haley's days of frisbee and ball chasing are most likely over.
Please be praying that Russ and I can make the best decision here...this surgery is very expensive and with the baby being so close the timing of this really isn't great. I would love to see her recovered by the time baby arrives so that she can be a part of the bonding and not feel left out. The surgery could take place as early as next Thursday afternoon after the consultation. Please pray for the vet to take extra good care of her and make her feel comfortable and that the surgery would indeed benefit her long term.
For now Haley is on some pain meds to make her more comfortable. She is feeling pretty good and hasn't been limping so that is good. We will keep you posted.
rachel's room
9 years ago
