I've noticed that this blog gets quite a bit of traffic headed not to the baby pages, but to the dog pages. And I thought I'd just post an update.
In '07, our dog River had her first TPLO surgery. That's right, I said first. She was running around the dog park, not even excessive running or jumping or whatever, no falling, nothing to indicate she had injured herself. We noticed some slight limping on her rear leg, with a strange clicking noise whenever she would walk around. After about a week, we realized she was getting a tiny bit worse every day, and took her to the vet. The clicking was essentially her patella (kneecap) clacking against her tibia.
She had the surgery, and we spent a lot of money at a holistic vet doing doggy therapy in the hopes that she would have a speedy recovery. A fast recovery is essential after a TPLO surgery. Due to the fact that after the surgery, a dog places nearly all of her weight constantly on the opposite leg, once a TPLO is done on the first leg there is a 60% chance she will need a TPLO on the other leg as well.
In January '08, almost a year after we noticed the symptoms the first time, River got off her leash during a walk and ran. We caught her right away, but not before the damage was done. This time, the limping was more severe, and the clacking louder. This time, she seemed to be in constant pain, instead of the intermittent limping we witnessed the first time around. We knew right away what had happened. We took her straight to the surgical vet (the Hope Center), bypassing our own vet completely. And $3K later, River had another TPLO surgery.
This time, we decided not to do the rehab. At that point, it was cost prohibitive for us, and we did not really feel that it had made that much of a difference. Watching her heal the second time nearly as quickly and as well as she had the first time, I do not regret forgoing the rehab.
We are coming up on January '09. River runs and plays and jumps, but she's not going through a metal detector anytime soon. She does not show any outward signs of being any different from our other dog.
She is no longer in pain, and for that I am eternally thankful.
We were blessed with the ability to afford such expensive care for our pet, but still needed help. We used Care First - a program that is essentially a credit card that can be used only for medical reasons at selected health care providers, which included the Hope Center. We were able to use the 3 month, no interest plan, and were able to budget the payments to have it paid off in time.
Today you are seven months old. You are growing up so very quickly, sometimes it scares me. You are more interactive every day, grabbing at everything in sight. Your coordination has improved vastly, and you grab hold of hair, necklaces, keys, purse straps, pretty much anything and everything. And it all goes in your mouth. Including your sign.
You are getting better with food. You will eat most of the vegetable purees, especially the 'orange' ones, like squash, carrots and -your favorite- sweet potatoes. You also love puffs, little crunchy things made by Gerber that dissolve in your mouth. I put them in front of you, on your highchair tray. And you reach out with those tiny little fat fingers and grab them by wee little handfuls, and bring them to your mouth. And then - who knows? Some end up in your mouth. Others get stuck to your chin, to your cheeks, or on the underside of your hands. I even found one behind your ear the other day. And most of them fall on the floor, where Janka, in a state of puff-induced bliss, sits waiting to gobble every wayward puff before it hits the ground.
Today you are six months old. Happy half-birthday! This month, you started doing all kinds of fun things. You ate food. So far, you've tried bananas, cereal, avocados, peas, sweet potatoes and pears. And the only thing that you like is the sweet potatoes. Everything else you make faces and push back in your chair away from the spoon or just spit it back at me. Fun times! You also sit in a highchair when we go out to eat (and you throw all your toys on the floor), and you sit in the front of the shopping cart when we go shopping.
You are getting so big. You laugh and giggle, and talk to your toys. You blow raspberries and stick out your tongue, and when someone puts their hand over your mouth you say 'ahhh' so that your voice reverberates as they move their hand. You are getting better at sitting, but still fall over a lot. 
You push yourself up when you're on your stomach, and when you are asleep you often roll onto your side or your tummy. You sleep in your crib all the time now. And when you are cranky and want to be held, you make a 'mamamama' noise that makes me smile. You like our dogs, and love it when they lick you. You hate putting your coat on, but 'cha know, it's winter and it's cold and ya gotta wear one.
