Day 5 Post TTA

Zane is doing great! I am so pleased with how quickly he is recovery from his TTA knee surgery. Each day, I have seen significant improvements. Today, he is able to get up fully on his own to stand and walk. He has no problem getting on the furniture to sleep. I guess with 3 weeks of a painful leg, he figured out how to get on the couch without using the sore leg.
The swelling in Zane's leg has almost disappeared at this point. I was pretty fanatical about keeping cold packs on his knee for 20- 30 minutes every other hour. The packs would actually be hot when I removed them. His leg is still pretty red but it looks better every day. We have started doing very gentle range of motion exercises to keep things limber. He doesn't seem to mind.
Today, Zeke even tried to entice Zane into a game of chase. Thankfully, Zane didn't even attempt to get up. There was a lot of rooing and smack talking going on but that was about it. That will probably be my biggest challenge....keeping everybody from wrestling and chasing. For now, they are satisfied with mouth wrestling and stealing toys from each other. A couple times a day, I pull out a big bag of toys and everybody plays romper room style. The we pack up all the toys and end the play session with a cookie break. I think it keeps Zane from getting overly bored. He is always ready for a good nap afterwards.
Speaking of naps...Zane has been sleeping so well during the day that he has been restless at night. He gets up and wanders, which of course makes me nervous that he may fall. I always end up getting out of bed myself just to put him back in his bed. So Saturday, I called my vet and asked for a sedative. The rx said 1-2 pills so I went light and gave Zane just one pill at bedtime. What a sweet night it was! He only got up once and that was just to reposition himself on a different bed in the room. Yesterday, though, he looked wasted all day long. His eyes were so red and droopy. The effects of the meds lasted from 10:15pm to dinnertime the following day! Despite sleeping most of Easter Sunday, he did ok last night (without a sleeping pill) and only got up once to go potty.
The potty breaks in the middle of the night are a pain because we have to get him in his harness and put a leash on just to take him in the backyard. Otherwise, anything that catches his interest will cause him take off running. He will need to be leashed for the next 2 months to take potty breaks. The prednisone is to blame for these late night sessions because it causes the dogs to drink a lot.
At this point, I am looking into rehab for Zane. He can start in another 10 days. I don't think he will need much in the way of physical therapy but I just want to make sure he starts to use his leg properly. I know that he will love the underwater treadmill. He has always loved to submerse himself in deep water. At just 2 weeks post surgery, his orthopedic surgeon will have him start a walking program that involves 5 minute walks, 2-3 times per day. Zane will have a 4 week recheck and then xrays at 8 weeks to check bone healing.

Catastrophy strikes

Seems like with a Wobbler's dog, you are always waiting and watching for the "what next?" Well, I got the what next on Wednesday evening. Zane was outside hanging with the pack. I was calling them in to the house when I noticed Zane fall and yelp. He didn't get back up. I ran out to him and steadied him as he tried to get to his feet. I knew immediately that it was one of two potential problems. Either he had hurt his back and a nerve was pinching and messing up signals to his leg or he had torn his ACL.

My vet had already left the office for the day so I had to decide whether or not to head out to the ER. We've been to the ER with our dogs before and have concluded that unless it's life threatening, it's not worth the money or time. We're glad they are there for emergencies, but it best be an emergency and therefore worth the money. Zane did not appear to be in pain as long as he was off the leg. We decided that we would wait until morning unless he worsened overnight. I even let him sleep on the bed so that I could keep an eye on him.

He made it through the night ok and we took him straight to the vet specialists/ER first thing in the morning. My hope was that we would get to see an orthopedic specialist and/or our neurologist in the event that there were any issues diagnosing Zane. We got lucky as they put Zane right in with the neurologist. He watched Zane limp along for a few minutes and then did a few checks of the leg. With a heavy sigh, he confirmed my suspicions of a torn ACL, no orthopedist needed for this diagnosis.

Now, I have been through two torn ACL's already with Zoe, the Lab and I think I know a thing or two about their treatments. No problem, "so when can we schedule his TPLO?" I ask. Then the ball drops...Zane is not a candidate for surgery. His Wobbler's is viewed as being too unstable. What??? I thought Zane was doing pretty damn good. Not so says the good doctor. The fact that Zane is still on Prednisone shows that he is not progressing and therefore is not stable.

Now starts the flurry of questions. Dr. Bergman suggests stabilizing Zane's neck via fusion surgery and some other procedure, the name eludes me, that involves cutting down some bone to allow the spinal cord to move more freely. Yikes...back to square one. He spent a long time fielding questions from Greg and I (much longer than my initial visit back in Sept) and gives us some technical papers regarding the procedure. He urges us to take our time thinking about what we want to do next as he doesn't want to rush us into a decision. We scheduled an appointment for a MRI, which he assures us he can do despite the gold beads being in Zane's neck.

I also scheduled an echo cardiogram for Zane. I have been learning about dilated cardiomylopathy (DCM) in Danes. In order to know if your dog has any heart issues, you need to do regular testing. It's recommended to do a baseline echo at 18-24 months. Once a dog shows visible signs of heart disease, it it usually to late to treat it effectively. I had an echo scheduled for March 17th but now I have moved up the date. Before I make any big decisions about such major surgeries back to back for Zane, I want to know that his heart is stable.

So now we wait for those tests to guide us further.