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!
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