Still, after a few days she stopped crying. A few days after that, she decided she felt fine, even after we took off her morphine patch and started cutting back on her pain pills. Little did she know that she was in for five more weeks of almost no motion.
A young, otherwise healthy dog such as Annie is not kept calm eaisly. Within a week she was lashing out: jumping over her three foot high enclosure ?(from a standstill), tearing up part of the couch (as a puppy, the worse she ever did was a pencil) and going up into the forbidden upstairs (a dog-hair-free zone for my allergic dad).
Still, she's healing wonderfully. We know Dr. Maine a bit better thanks to the little girl, as she managed to undo several stiches and had a bit of internal bleeding, but by her six-week check-up with Dr. Turner, her surgeon, her prognosis is good.
She's still not allowed to play with Max (which they both dearly want to do) or do her "crazies" (running around at top speed in little circles), another favorite pasttime, but she can go for w-a-l-k-s again and has free run of the house. In about four weeks she goes in for another check-up, where hopefully we will be told that she can play again.
Whenever I look at Annie - and she makes sure that this is often! - I thank Dr. Maine and Dr. Turner. Without their help, I would have a lame, pain-filled dog.
Thank you!
They were unable to tell us much that day, except that we should keep her from moving if possible and bring her in the next day for an x-ray. It showed a dislocated hip, which Dr. Maine popped back into place in hopes that a few days of little activity would cure everything.
Saturday the 16th we brought her in for a check-up. It looked as if it were healing properly, but Dr. Maine (bless the man!) wanted to do a follow up x-ray to be certain. Sure enough, it hadn't stayed. The only reasonable option? Surgery.
That night, we brought Annie in to meet her surgeon, of whom Dr. Maine had spoken very highly. Between this new doctor and our regular vet, we decided that a total hip replacement is necessary. It's the one of four surgical options that has the best chance of restoring her to her completly normal self. As Dr. Maine put it, "This dog's life is motion."
It looks as though she's always had a very shallow hip joint, so this was bound to happen
eventually. Her other hip isn't perfect, but there's a good chance it will never cause her a problem, either. They'll be replacing the hip, almost as in a human hip replacement, and them comes six weeks of keeping her as still as possible (sigh!).
So on either the 27 or the 7 or something like that, Annie's going in to get a new hip, the exact date depending on how the surgeon's schedule works out. I sure hope it's sooner rather than later.