My big dog Cody had his surgery on Monday morning for his ruptured ACL. He had to stay in the animal hospital over night and came home late yesterday afternoon. When the doctor got in he found more damage than expected; the cartilage was badly damaged and good bit of arthritis had settled in already. Unfortunately we had to delay the surgery because of the oral surgery he had on July 7. We didn't want that infection to travel.
Yesterday Cody was groggy and pretty much out of it. He has two fentanyl patches on for pain as well as oral pain medication. We went to three different veterinarians before we decided on which surgery to have done. One option was the Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy, TPLO for short, which involved cutting the bone, a metal plate and screws. The estimate for that was between 3200. - 4200. DOLLARS. On top of the 705. we'd already spent. Not that my dog isn't worth that to me, he's priceless but all three vets said that when one ligament goes the other one follows quite often. I wasn't surprised by that statement because I've had another dog that it happened to, about a year apart. That's a lot of money if it had to be done twice. Our other option was the Estracapsular Stablization (ECR). We came to the conclusion since Cody is about 10 years old, not a working dog or frisbee catching dog, the ECR would be fine for him. The TPLO is like the Lexus of the repair and the ECR is like a loaded Honda Accord. Both are nice cars, get you from point A to B but one is much more expensive than the other. The surgery and treatment we chose was about 2000. total. Again I love my dog and it wasn't just about the money. We couldn't see doing that huge surgery on him.
He came home from the vet with two fashion accessories; a cone for his head so he can't get at the staples and the sling above. While the cone is an annoyance, he hates the sling. He's going to have to get used to it because he needs to use it with his physical therapy. Recovery time start to finish for this operation - four to six months.
4 comments:
Awwwww bless him. My Border Terrier, Rohan, sends her furry love. She was having a good peek at the picture. x
poor puppy! And despite all that he's been through, he is still smiling in that last picture!
Poor Cody!! I am so glad that he is going to recover though and hopefully be as good as new :)
Funny how they shave them, it just looks so odd.
He is a beautiful dog -- and the smile on his face says "THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF ME"
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