Poor McKenzie

So for those of you that don't know us in real life (which let's be honest, might be like one person reading this blog), we have a precious fur baby that was our first child.  Stephen's "Aunt" ML gave her to us after Stephen and I  had only been six dating six months.  That was seven years ago and she has been a huge part of our family since that time.  Last year she had to have TPLO surgery on both of her back legs.  Basically she blew out both of her knees and had to have her  knees rebuilt.  They go in and cut the leg bone and create a less severe angle to the bone and then put a plate and a bunch of screws in and re-attach the ligament.  If you are dying for a more scientific and accurate description you can check it out here.  It is a very difficult and expensive surgery and the recovery is tremendous.  The rehab process is 12 weeks and it is very demanding on Stephen because she basically has to be almost completely immobile for 6 weeks and then can only be walked on a leash for another six weeks after that.

After she had her first knee done, she blew out her second knee literally within five minutes of coming off of her 12 weeks of rehab.  It was only a partial tear at the time so we did another 12 weeks of rehab, hoping we could strengthen the area around it without surgery.  Unfortunately that did not work as planned and she ended up having to have another knee surgery and 12 more weeks of rehab.

Fast-forward to Friday a week ago.  I noticed on Friday morning that she was limping and would occasionally not put one of her paw pads down.  We didn't think too much of it because we thought she might have hurt her paw pad running around.   On Saturday she was not acting any better and we could not find something wrong with her paw pad, so Stephen took her in to the vet.  The vet thought she might have sprained her ankle or have an infection in her ankle joint.  She sent us home with some anti-inflammatories and said to bring her back if she wasn't getting better.  Well, she didn't get better and at times is was getting worse so Stephen took her back in last Friday.  The vet observed some new tenderness in the knee but couldn't determine what it was and wanted us to see our specialist.

We took her in on Monday and got the bad news.  Apparently the ligament that holds her knee cap in place had stretched and her knee cap was sliding in and out.  That meant more surgery.  Boo for all of us!  She had the surgery on Tuesday and got to come home yesterday.  She is pitiful, but hopefully will be feeling better in the next couple of weeks.

Here is the kicker(s).  Kicker number one.  MY POOR WALLET.  I am not going to tell you what we have had to spend on her legs over the past 13 months, but sufficed to say it would have paid my car off.  Kicker number two.  The rehab from this surgery is still twelve weeks.  To make matters worse, because the bone wasn't cut she feels much better much faster so keeping her calm will be a challenge.  Kicker number three.  We have a very active 18 month old in the house who doesn't understand why he can't "pet", pull, poke, jump on the dog.

It is going to be a long 12 weeks.....