On February 19th Bohdan had TPLO surgery performed on his left knee. Links to information on this surgery can be found on my ACL information page.
I was able to bring Bohdan home the same day as his surgery. Which is unusal, and somewhat
freightening. No one wants to see their dog just a few hours after surgery. He was barely
able to lift his head. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth and he didn't even realize it.
Though I must say he was happy I was there.
I had rented a mini van to transport him after surgery, and once I removed the catheter
a few techs grabbed a sling and we walked him out to the van. He was not sure what was happening.
It is a 30 minute drive home from the hospital and by the time we got home he was more coherent. I was beginning to worry about how I was going to get him out of the van, as it had started to rain, he had a bandage on that was not supposed to get wet, and he would not think of using the ramp I had purchased. My worrying was for not.
Once I opened the door of the van and he realized he was home, he began to make his wayout. I stood outside and eased him to the ground. Those of you who are not aware, Bohdan is a 150 pound Rottweiler mix.
In preparation of his home coming I had taken my bed off of the box spring and frame and I just had the mattress on the floor. Since he was used to sleeping on the bed, and I don't mind it and didn't want to fight his jumping on to it, I made it easy. I thought we would go into the house and he would flop on the bed. I was wrong. We went into the house and he flopped in the middle of the living room. Which in hindsight was a better place to be.
We both slept on the living room floor for the next few nights, each day he had an easier time of getting up, and was very tolerant of the plastic bags that needed to be put on his foot for going outside to potty. We were given a very large dose of antibiotics that he needed to get 3 times a day. These made him sick. So I stopped giving it. He seemed to do better, although his digestive tract is just now, 8 weeks post surgery, getting back into proper working order.
We had a very quiet week with Bohdan spending most of it asleep... After one week we went back to the vet to have the bandage, which was more like a cast, checked and changed... I would say that having this type of bandage was great, although there were a few times when he tried to turn over and he caught his leg the wrong way and cried and cried... until I was able to get to him and help him get his weight off of it. I spoke to the vet about it and she said that there was very little he could do to hurt it, while it was is the bandage. So we had the newbandage on, and one more week to go until the staples were to be removed, and time in the bandage was over.