Update on Chelsie

This morning, my vet diagnosed Chelsie's injury as a torn ACL. When I woke up yesterday and she was still gimpy, I knew something more serious was wrong. Her leg is very limp, just sort of hanging there and she is hobbling around on three legs. Very hard to watch.

After my vet determined it was an ACL tear, I was immediately scheduled for a consult with another doctor in the practice who does these types of surgeries. He presented me with three options, one of which could have been done by him. He felt the best option for Chelsie was a procedure to be performed at OSU which essentially manuvers bone to support her knee. At first, it did not sound like an option I wanted to go with, but after letting him finish and asking some questions, I was in agreement with what he said. He also recommended OSU over Medvet (our local specialty vet hospital) because he felt the procedure Medvet would encourage did not have the data to show long term results. Essentially, Medvet is a cutting edge tpe of place, while OSU, being a university and teaching hospital, wants data to support long term outcomes of the procedures they perform. Also, one of the doctors that will be involved in Chelsie's case is one of the top in the world.

So while this is not what I had hoped for, I feel good about the treatment decision I have made. My focus now is to get her into a quiet routine that limits her jumping and movement in general, so that when she has the surgery, she will be able to recover quickly. For now, it is hard to see her hobble around - her surgery is not until 11/19, but I am hoping I get a cancellation call...

Thanks for everyone's good thoughts. Through this, Chelsie has been a trooper, and was such a good girl when everyone was prodding at her at the vet office today.