The last few weeks have been extraordinarily long ones. Just as my busy season at work was wrapping up, we started having some health issues with Gracie. Nothing that we thought was super serious at the time – but, we were in and out of the vet a lot more than usual.
(The above photo sums up how Gracie feels about all of the vet visits over the past month).
Last Friday I thought that we had turned a corner and things were finally back to normal with the monkey. We went for a walk and she was seemingly back to her old self.
Nobody was happier about this than Sherlock. Even after a day at Dogs at Play, he was all about playing with big sister when she started rough housing with him. Just as I let the dogs outside, I noticed Gracie picking up her right foot and hopping around a little. It didn’t last long and we thought she was ok – until the next morning when we took her out and she refused to go up the stairs on our deck.
After a bit of deliberation we decided to make an appointment at a local vet that has Saturday afternoon hours. The verdict? She has a torn ACL and needs surgery. I was shocked. I honestly thought that we were being silly taking her back to the vet again and that they would tell us she had a sprain and send us on our merry way.
After a second opinion yesterday confirmed the diagnosis, we went ahead and scheduled her surgery for August 27th (the day before our anniversary). Considering how I handled things at the emergency vet back in January, I think that I am doing remarkably well. Thus far, my only major breakdown occurred after my mom started asking me about Gracie’s life expectancy (thanks mom!). But, I am sure the day that we drop her off for surgery will be particularly difficult.
The next couple of months are going to be very long. The initial recovery period is about 8 weeks and our orthopedic vet is really big on doing physical therapy ASAP after the surgery. I think that I might try and document the whole thing on this blog – there is a TON of information on the web regarding this particularly injury with dogs and it has really helped me quite a bit as we have wrapped our heads around this injury.
This weekend is going to be devoted to creating a post surgery friendly house. I think this means getting Gracie a bigger crate, some area rugs for our hardwood floors/tile and a puppy cone. I am not sure if it has been medically proven, but, Gracie is telling me that ice cream helps promote healing!
