Railroad Park

Birmingham has recently been blessed with two things.  One was a weekend of warm weather right in the middle of winter (which is ironic seeing as now it is iced over outside).  The other was the recent opening of Railroad Park in downtown.  We went for the first time this past weekend to have a picnic and enjoy the nice day and I was TOTALLY impressed.  It is right in between Southside and downtown Birmingham and I really think it is going to do great things for the rehabilitation of that area.  Perron is obssessed with choo-choo's so he thought it was awesome because an active train line runs right on the edge of the park.  I honestly felt like I was in a much bigger city, with a vibrant urban center when we were down there.  They are doing a lot of development next to the park, including building a new baseball stadium for our minor league baseball team right next to the park.  We are so excited to see what happens to the area as it continues to grow.  For now though, it is still a huge asset to the community and we will definitely be going back quite a bit in the spring.

While we were there Perron got to go on his first picnic and enjoy big open spaces to run around in.  He was so precious.  We took some pictures and I am finally going to get some photos posted up here.  I bet y'all were starting to forget what he looked like.  Don't worry...he is just as precious as ever.  Enjoy!

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.....