On the Kansas-Colorado state line (C-96) east of Sheridan Lake.
Colorful Colorado
Daily Monkey
The Three Amigos
A quick photo of Emily, Lucy and Fabi at the summit of Boreas Pass. Yes, Lucy was still wearing a soft cast at this point. About a week after this photo was taken, the vet removed Lucy’s bandage completely and so far everything looks good. She places the foot “correctly” now and does not appear to be rolling and slapping the bottom of her foot, which was the cause of the ulcers.
She’s still on “light activity” for a while as she learns to live with fused bones and a titanium plate in her leg.
Lucy update: 29 September 2010
Splint is out, soft bandages
for a couple of weeks. Lucy is thrilled.
Originally uploaded by bad9brad
Lucy has been doing very well and this week the veterinarian removed the splint from her leg. She now only wears a full-leg soft bandage and appears to get along just fine, despite concerns from the vet that she may have difficulty walking without the extra support. To the contrary, Lucy has been running and jumping and wrestling with Fabi — until I catch her doing those things and calm her down.
I was hoping she would be able to do a little hiking and perhaps even a camping trip this week but I need to remain patient. She’ll be doing that stuff within a month or so, and I must wait.
Lucy update: 7 September 2010
We just returned from yet another visit to the veterinary specialist hospital where Lucy had not only a bandage change but also a follow-up appointment with the surgeon. He gave us some good news: The ulcer on the bottom of Lucy’s paw has healed up much better than expected.
The original ulceration was larger than a quarter in size, closer to the size a fifty-cent piece. Today, the ulcer is as small as the tip of an adult male’s pinky finger. What this means is that by the time the bandages and splint are removed (“the cast”), Lucy possibly won’t need the tissue graft surgery. She will have built up enough healthy scar tissue that the grafts won’t be required, and let me tell you that is a big deal. After eight weeks of recuperation from surgery #1 I wasn’t sure if we could hold out another four to six weeks for healing from surgery #2.
Of course, I don’t want to set my hopes too high and be disappointed. The surgeon was very excited (almost giddy) when he spoke to me so I will continue to keep her as quiet as possible to promote further healing of the ulcer. With the metal plate and fused ankle bones she should not roll her foot and cause another ulcer to form, and we’ll be at that mythical place I’ve been searching for over the past 16 months: healthy.
A Sunday visit to the veterinary hospital
Lucy had been in pretty good spirits since her surgery last Monday, until today. She had been playful and very, very loving over the past week and was walking a bit on her cast, but today she was hopping around was hiding from me like a hurt dog (under the bushes in the back yard when I took her out to pee, under the dining table, etc). She wasn’t snapping at me or growling, but she was obviously not feeling well. I inspected the bandage/splint and noticed her toes had swelled up pretty large, so I called the surgical center and they told me to bring her down. A few hours later she has a new bandage and a new attitude, and hopefully I can keep her quiet enough to prevent the bandage from shifting again (which is what was constricting her toes today).
Arthrodesis of the right carpus, and other amazing tails
Lucy had surgery last Monday to help correct her “leg posture” so she would not continue to roll and slap the foot down which creates an ulcer on the bottom of the foot. The ulcer grew larger and consumed part of the large pad on the foot, and because she still cannot feel the bottom of the foot it only gets worse with every passing day. Once an infection set in we had to make a decision about how to move forward with her medical care: surgery or amputation.
Operation Expensive Dog is comprised of at least two steps:
1. Arthrodesis surgery (competed). This surgery fuses the bones of the ankle into a more upright posture, with a little bit of “pigeon toe” thrown in, to prevent the rolling and slapping of the foot when Lucy walks. There’s a titanium plate screwed to the bones to hold the leg in the correct posture and facilitate the fusion. Healing time is approximately six to eight weeks.
2. Skin graft. About two weeks after the first surgery is deemed successful, Lucy will go back for tissue grafting. The surgeon will take cartilage from the ancillary pads on each front leg (the pads that don’t touch the ground) and graft the tissue into the area where the large pad has worn away. Hopefully it will only take one surgery but if the ulcer has not healed enough there may be a second graft required.
Lucy will have an “altered gait” for the rest of her life, but she already had a funky gait anyway because of the way her leg moved. I’ve been told she will be able to run and jump and do all the things normal dogs do, but we’ll have to always take extra care of the foot since she won’t ever regrow the nerve endings that allow her to feel what’s under foot. Lucy definitely will wear her hiking booties when we’re out in the wilderness, and that’s okay with me.
The difficult thing about all this medical work (beyond the incredibly high costs) is that she needs to be “quiet” for the next three or four months. Try telling an 18-month-old Labrador Retriever mix to be quiet! We’ve already had some issue with her jumping on and off furniture and the bed, all of which is forbidden by the doctors. She could displace the plate or cause the bones to not properly fuse together, and I’m really not ready for the alternative.
Lucy has been in good spirits today and even has her appetite back. She wants to play! now! Oooh, look a squirrel! I’ve stacked objects on her favorite chairs and ottoman to keep her from perching on them to look out the windows, and closed the bedroom door to keep her off of the bed, but she still finds ways to get into trouble. Clearly this is going to be more difficult for me than for her.
Fabi is staying with Mike and Antoinette and Emily until tomorrow, but when she returns I know I will have to watch them both like a hawk to keep them from playing and wrestling in their normal fashion. Perhaps I can call our vet and see if she will prescribe some sedatives for both of them.
An update on Lucy
Lucy’s foot has not improved over the past few months. We had a follow-up appointment with the vet and the ulcer had become infected again, so it’s another round of antibiotics. We’re also going to see a specialist to see if they have any ideas for helping heal the tissue on the bottom of her foot. My vet is not very optimistic, however, and there is a high probability that we’ll have to amputate the leg to avoid a massive raging infection.
It’s not been a very happy day here.
Average wait time: 54 minutes
They lied. My wait time was a little over 90 minutes, but the best was yet to come.
Colorado has a convoluted DMV/license plate system. Perhaps other states do, too, but ours is pretty messed up. Add to that system the current economic problems that result in reduced services and staff, and here is what you get:
When I sold my Audi (trade-in) somehow the new owner received a copy of my registration for the vehicle. This allowed the new owner/somebody to register my vehicle plates in their name. This is not supposed to be possible (as I was told repeatedly today) since vehicle plates are assigned to a person, not a specific vehicle. The really amazing part is how the plates were assigned to somebody else while they were in my possession. Everything I was told today says you can’t transfer them to another party without physical possession of the plates.
After about an hour of checking with supervisors, updating my records and phoning the other Denver DMV branch offices, the clerk “thinks” she has it all sorted out. Hopefully I won’t ever be stopped by the police and find out otherwise. The critical part of getting the plate snafu sorted was that I have a half-year of paid “credit” on those plates and I wanted to apply that amount to my new vehicle registration fee.
I felt a little badly that my turn at the window was taking so long. I could feel the eyes of the 100+ people waiting their turns burning a hole into my back. It would have helped if Denver DMV had more than 3 of the 10 windows running…
Two and a half hours and net $344 later, I walked out of the DMV with the same plates with which I entered. There’s no telling if they’re really “my” plates or not.
Fabi Flashback
I recently came across this “vintage” footage of Fabi playing with a very young Emily at Mike’s house. (Also starring a younger Mike)