Steve took Doc into the vet's office at about 7:30 this morning. He said there were two other labs there to have the same procedure done. Doc's vet said yesterday that he did 2-3 of these procedures daily so I guess he wasn't lying. Steve said that Doc didn't really want to go with the vet tech but he gave her the bag of cookie bones I'd back for Doc and he went willingly with her. We got word about 9:40 that he was under anesthesia and getting prepped for surgery. Steve got the news we'd been waiting for at about noon. Doc was out of surgery, groggy but awake and surgery had been a complete success!!! The doctor said he was really pleased with the repair and the tear was only a partial tear rather than a full tear which should hopefully lead to less arthritis in the future. He said based on what he saw, that there was a low chance of having any troubles with that in the future. I called to check on him at about 5:30 this evening and the doctor said that he was up watching everything that was happening in the office and not very patiently waiting for dinner and any chance to go outside he would get. He also told us that we could come to visit tonight but we thought that would be pretty mean to come visit and then not take him home. Needless to say we're thrilled that surgery was a success!!!!
I thought I would try to explain what this surgery does for the dog. Basically, he tore his ACL just like a human would. Unlike humans, dog's ACL's tear a little bit over time rather than just having a blow out. This is why luckily we caught Doc's before it was a complete tear. We were presented with two options from our regular vet. The first, basically used heavy duty stiches to sew both pieces of the ligement back together. The vet's worry was with Doc's large size and young age that the sutures would fail and his ACL would tear again. The upside to this surgery was that our vet who we love and trust would be doing the operation.
In the TPLO surgery a specialist would replace the ACL with a metal plate and pins to give Doc a basically "new" knee. The plate actually goes in and corrects the angle that has changed in his knee to give him more support and movement in the knee. This surgery also comes with a shorter recovery and better long term result than the traditional suture surgery.
Our vet told us that he thought that the TPLO surgery would be the better option for Doc and was afraid that if we went with the suture procedure we would have to go back and do the TPLO procedure in the future.
Although this was the more "worrisome" part of this process I think the hard long haul is in front of us. Once we get him home we have to watch for infection and swelling and keep his movement to a minimum. We've moved furniture around in the house to help him and are extremly anxious to get him home. Please continue to keep him and us in your thoughts and prayers!
This is a picture off the internet of what the plate and screws look like that they put into the dog's leg. Strange that something that "clunky" can replace the bone and ligements in the dog's leg.
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