Friday, October 23, 2009

Home and Our New Routine

I am very happy to report that according to Dr. Kennedy, Chelsie's surgery went quite well. She was a very good patient - ate when they asked her to (go figure), pottied when they asked her to and was very quiet during her stay. When I spoke to the tech caring for her yesterday morning, she said she thought Chelsie might be annoyed with the "barkers" around her, that some of her kennel mates were not nearly as quiet as she was. I asked if she was sighing and groaning...and the girl said yes. I laughed and told her she was telling them to "SHUT UP" in her own way, as she does this to me all the time.

Getting her back yesterday was a bit overwhelming...we had to watch a video and then had someone come out and give us all the instructions again. For the next 6-8 weeks, she will be confined to a crate and her slip lead that is about 2 feet away from us. Her movements must be very tightly managed at all times. I was very worried about this part, but they said as long as we keep her on the leash and in the crate, we should be fine as we can't stop all movement - which made me feel better. The $$ I spent on the ramp to get her in the car was worth every dollar yesterday. We waited outside by the car when the brought her up - she tends to pull when she sees me, and that was just not a good idea yesterday. We managed to get her in the car and then loved on her...where she had limited space to move around and be excited. I flipped up a thrid row seat and sat next to her on the way home.

She came home with 10 days of antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory and pain medicine. For the next 2 weeks, she will get walked 5-10 minutes per day, have range of motion exercises and then ice. After 14 days, she will have her staples removed. 2-4 weeks see us being able to lose the ice and move our walks to 10-20 minutes 3x a day. And 4-6 weeks see us 20-30 minutes three times a day. At some point, we will start rehab, and her movement will still be limited after 6 weeks, but I do not know the extent of that quite yet. We are really focused on the next 2 weeks, primarily because of the staples - if she is not IMMEDIATELY supervised, she will have to wear her ecollar. Lucky for her, her gramma and grampa love her dearly and will be spending a lot of time with her because they do NOT want her to have to wear that thing.

Undoubtedly, the best thing I did for her was start the crate routine prior to surgery. She goes right in it when I ask her to, and I am thankful that I don't have to worry about her fighting her crate at this point.

For now, she is resting next to me on the floor. We have already been on our first walk of the day, done our first range of motion exercises and had our first ice pack. Not too crazy about the ice, but never has been - and I repeatedly consulted the video of the range of motion exercises while I was doing them. I have this irrational fear that I am going to like break the screws and plates in her knee..I know I am not, but I can't help it.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts...she is already doing better, and I am glad I was able to get this done so quickly...she had surgery one week to the day after her injury. I will keep you posted as we go along!

No comments: