The adventure of Sadie's surgery and the first night home...plus sad Lucy

Well on Monday we got about 5 inches of snow at our house which was then followed by freezing rain and ice. We let Sadie and Lucy play in the snow and they had a lot of fun. We also took Lucy to my in laws house when we went to sled, while we were there we played on their trampoline and Lucy had fun playing with her "uncle" Luke. That night she was a little stiff but we were not very concerned. She seemed to get better the next few days.
Wednesday night I got a bag ready to take to the animal hospital for Sadie's surgery on Thursday, I packed two of her blankets and the new racoon toy we bought for her. When we woke up early Thursday I wanted to cry, Lucy was now holding up HER back left leg and not using it at all! I just couldn't believe that this could happen, a little fun in the snow and now it looked like she may have a torn cruciate too! Well we decided to give it a few days to see if she got better or worse and we put Lucy in her crate with breakfast and left Sgt. Pepper out in the living room with his breakfast and took off with Sadie to the animal hospital in Elgin. We checked her in and gave the vet tech Sadie's bag of blankets and toy gave her a kiss and left. It was hard for me to leave her and I almost cried again, but was sure they would take good care of my girl. We both went off to work and I thought about Sadie all day.
During my lunch break they called to let me know Sadie was doing fine that they were running pre op blood work on her and had her IV in, but that an emergency C-section had come in and Sadie would have to wait until that was taken care of. When I was on my way home from work the Doctor called and told me that Sadie was doing great and that the knee definately needed to be taken care of, but that other than the torn cruciate and a small tear to her meniscus she was in great shape. There was no sign of harm to the bones in her knee joint. He told me she was on a drip for pain and would be all night and that she was sleeping and in no pain. They would call me in the morning to let me know when to come pick her up.
Friday morning I woke up very very sick. I thought I had already had this stomach bug on Wednesday when Stephen did and we both stayed home form work. Well apparently this bug was just giving me a preview on Wednesday and showed up full force on Friday! I was miserable and unsure if I would be able to pick Sadie up from the hospital. Well through sheer force of will I managed to get her home that afternoon and then we both took a nap.

I was awakened from my nap by Sadie crying/whining from her crate. It broke my heart. I took her potty outside (made difficult by the still present ice) and gave her some food and water. Her pain medicine's were prescribed for twice a day but I could tell she was still in pain. So I called the vet and they said I could give one of them to her every 4 hours. I gave her the medicine and then let her lay on the couch while I sat next to her so she could have the cone off. She soon was sleeping peacefully. When Stephen came home he helped me care for Sadie and our other two dogs. We gave Sadie all her medicine (after some struggle, she is quite sneaky with pills!) and put the cone back on her and put her in the crate around 10pm. Well we were woken up at 1am and took her potty and went back to bed. At 2 am she woke us up again crying so we gave her more pain medicine and went back to bed. At 5 am we woke up again and Stephen decided to put her on the couch and sit by her so I could sleep. Then a few hours later we switched. It was a VERY long night!! Today we called the vet to see if we could get a sedative to allow her to sleep in the cone, as we were now convinced that the cone scared her SO much that she was crying and panting excessively. Stephen is out getting the medicine now and we are praying it works so we can ALL get some sleep tonight!

an update on Sadie

About a month ago we took Sadie for x-rays. Our vet said they looked good, no obvious fractures, which made her think it was a torn cruciate ligament. She suggested we go to a vet specialist in town to see what he thought. So we did that right after Christmas and right away he said yes torn cruciate. Then told us he wanted to perform a TPLO surgery on Sadie. Where they would go in and cut her bone reshaping the curve of her knee and then put plates and screws in to stabilize the joint. The estimate: $2700-$3000. Well to say I was upset and shocked would be a bit of an understatement. I want the best for my Sadie but that is A LOT of money!(and I don't just have that and we don't want to get into debt/payments etc) Our vet suggested we come back in and talk with her about some different options. She called some vet schools and other animal hospitals close to us for estimates. She also told us that there was another surgery to consider: extracapsular repair. With this they would go into her knee joint take out the torn ligament and any torn meniscus and then put a strong heavy duty "fishing line" type material through the joint and bones to provide stabilization and eventually scar tissue would stabilize her knee. When she came back with estimate options the prices for TPLO weren't too different than here in town and after finding out the extracapsular option was $1200 and that it could potentially give her just as much improvement we decided to with it.
Today I took Sadie to see the surgeon in Elgin. He said Sadie was a good candidate for surgery as she is only 53 pounds and not technically a large breed dog which would require her to have TPLO. He said she may never get back to 100% but that with a lot of work on our part he thinks she will do well. Unfortunately every vet we go to says she will have arthritis and that there is about a 40% chance her other knee will do the same thing. I scheduled her surgery for next Thursday. I am nervous about her with anesthesia, but I know they are doing blood work to try to catch any problems. I know she will be in pain and I will be sad. Also they have to shave all the pretty hair off of her leg, which while I know this is such a small part of it, it will make me sad. I know she will be on strict crate rest for at least 2 weeks and then we will be doing some at home physical therapy, range of motion exercises etc. to keep her muscles from atrophy. The vet said the best would be water exercise at a vet physical therapist but Sadie HATES and is terrified of water! But I may still check into it...maybe. I know this is going to be hard on all of us, Lucy already is sad and misses playing with her "sister" but maybe a few months from now Sadie will be almost back to her old self. I sure hope so. I am praying that this surgery option works for us or else we may be having to do the TPLO someday in the future anyway!