T-ko finally came home tonight. I think she will recover better at home, at least one of her four beds here at home is more comfortable then a blanket on the ground. No she isn’t spoiled….she just need a bed in every possible room. I don’t make my guests sit on the floor….well only on occasion. T-ko is hopping around on her three legs. She actually seems to be doing a lot better and happier now that she is home. I just can’t imagine having my leg cut into two pieces and then screwed  back together and then two days later have to jump around to go outside and go to the bathroom. Talk about miserable, but she is doing it all just fine and not even whimpering like she is in pain. 

I just got back from tucking in the princess. She is finally up on her feet a little but not putting any weight on the leg that was operated on. I can tell she is wanting to bust out of the joint…she takes after her dad, I would be wanting to bust out as well. She was glad to see me. I took her for a short walk using a towel sling to hold up her hind quarters, evidently this is how we are going to have to move her around the house for the next two weeks. She seemed to be feeling much better then when I saw her right after surgery. She actually ate a little tonight and even took her pain medicine without any problems. They shaved her whole left ass cheek and I think it looks sexy. I think I might shave my left ass cheek to match…I might even post a few pictures of us looking like twins!!!!  Ok that wouldn’t be a good idea I guess so just look at her cheek and then imagine my left cheek shaved too. T-ko was mad when I had to leave and she didn’t get to come home with me. Hopefully her pain medicine kicks in and she falls asleep. I hopefully get to pick her up in the morning.

T-ko just got out of surgery. This morning she had her TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) Surgery. Dr. Bagley called and said that everything went fine and that the operation was finished and she was starting to wake up from her anesthesia. I left work and went over to see how she is doing. The Staff at the Cottonwood Animal Hospital let me go back and see her. My little princess was in a kennel wrapped up in blankets to keep warm and still hooked up to her I.V. She was still groggy but she knew who I was and her little stub started wiggling. You have to love that boxer wiggle, T-ko can’t hide when she is excited to see someone. I went into her kennel and sat down next to her and she laid her head on my lap and sighed. I think she was happy to see someone familiar. The Vet Tech came by and said that I didn’t have to sit on the floor of the kennel in my suit and that she would get me a blanket as well. I sat there for a little while and rubbed T-ko’s head. I have so worried about her today, I am just glad everything went fine with the surgery. Now we have 8 weeks of physical therapy ahead of us.

Maddie now sleeps in the bed with us. That means that there is even less room in our King sized bed. T-ko sleeps at the foot of the bed and Maddie snuggles in under my arm along the wall of my chest or sleeps on my pillow. We manage to sleep just fine with T-ko in at the foot of the bed, however, Maddie has become another story. Maddie now weighs a whopping 15 lbs, but she snores like she is an overweight pig that has phlegm in the back of her throat. I didn’t know a sound like that could be produced from such a small package. I actually don’t have a problem with Maddie’s snoring. I could sleep through World War III and not wake up. Once I finally get to sleep, which some nights seems to take all night, I am out for the count. Rick, on the other hand, wakes up at the sound of the clock changing minutes……It really doesn’t make a sound but he seems to think he can hear it. Rick has now resorted to wearing ear plugs to try and buffer the jack hammer noise that our little French Bulldog produces every night.

T-ko has been limping lately. It actually started about 2 months ago so I took her to the doctor and they said that she probably had a small tumor growing in her hip and this was causing arthritis issues. The doctor said at that time that we should probably just give her a pain medicine to alleviate the discomfort. So for the past two months we have been giving her two pills a day with her meals to help make her a little more comfortable. Last week I noticed that she wasn’t even putting weight on her back leg. She was really starting to favor that left back leg. So off to the doctor we went again.

I took her back to the doctor yesterday afternoon and the doctor ran some more tests on her back leg that she is favoring. The doctor found another small tumor that is starting to grow and wants to remove it before it becomes an issue, but the doctor said that should not cause her to stop using that leg. He performed a few more tests and told me that T-ko had a cranial cruciate ligament rupture in her left hind stifle joint (that would be a knee joint for me).

T-ko is scheduled to have a TPLO (Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy) on Monday morning. It really is an interesting surgery. A TPLO surgery involves making a curved cut in the top of the tibia bone (osteotomy) to include the tibial plateau. The tibial plateau is then rotated along the curved osteotomy in order to level the slope. A plate and screws are used to hold the tibial plateau in place so that the bone can heal in its new position.

T-ko will then not be able to bear weight on that joint for 2 weeks. After the 2 weeks are over she will start to put limited amount of weight on that joint. The doctor said it should take about two months of therapy and that there is a 90% chance that she will be back to new and not have any lingering problems with that joint.  My little princess has been very upset at me today. I think she knows something is up and she is not happy about it. I will keep you informed on how she does on Monday with her surgery and keep you updated on her recovery. She is a little fighter…I think my biggest hassle is going to be keeping her from putting weight on that joint for the next two weeks.