Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or
slow to do the humble work.

- Mother Teresa

About Me

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Sunny Florida, United States
I am the proud mom to 6 kids: Natasha, 24, Nikolai, 20, Reese, 20, Maylee, 14, Erik, 10 and Violet, 7. The kids come from Russia, Ukraine and China; I'm so proud of my family sometimes I think I'll burst and I needed an outlet for it - so I've created this weblog. :o)
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Mother Teresa

Motivation for Moms

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One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
Mother Teresa

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009
You may remember that Daisy our Boston Terrier, had surgery on both knees early in March.
Since then, she has never really fully recovered. We've had her to the vet several times so that he could check and make sure that her patellas (knee caps) were securely in place and ask why she wasn't bearing weight on her right leg. He kept telling us that her knees were fine and to walk, walk, walk her and really work her out to get her leg stronger, because it was getting weak. He would check her hips, but even though her legs seemed to be of different lengths, he surmised that it was because her muscles were getting tight from holding her leg up, and he told me to stretch it and really get her to try and use it.

Well, 3 full months after surgery, I'd had enough of seeing her crip around on 3 legs and I took her back in and asked for an X-ray. I did not like the results.

Back when she had her knee surgery, she also had dislocated her hip. Her hip popped itself back into place and all was well. Or so we thought. Turns out that she had some blood vessel damage or something and this cut off the blood supply to the ball of her hip, and she ended up with a dead hip and a large crack through the ball!!!


(This is not her hip, but a healthy canine hip/pelvis X-ray.)

So basically, she needs a total hip replacement due to avascular necrosis, the same as her Daddy got a year and a half ago.

Because a THR would cost $3-5000, the vet said he could do something different, which is cut off the dead ball (no comments here, please!!) and "wrap the muscles" around the empty space - or something - and fix it like that, for a mere $998-1341!!! As Reese would say, "It's Pocket Change!!!" While not completely fixing it like a THR would, this procedure would give her total pain relief (eventually) and would allow her to bear weight through it and walk and run and be pretty normal, but she'd always have a bit of a "wobble" to her gait at her hind legs and her hip wouldn't be able to bend as well as before. We CAN'T afford the hip replacement surgery, so we'll have to go with the second option. At the very least, her pain will be relieved, which is important to us.

It's not like we're desperately saving for an international adoption or anything... It's only money, right? We can make more...!!!

If we didn't love this dog SO much and if she wasn't only 21 months old, I'm not sure what I'd do. Good thing for her she is young and desperately loved!!!

You can see in this picture not only her knee scar from her surgery on the right (our left) hind leg, but you can see how she holds it up. She will touch it to the ground, but won't put weight on it, and I've totally stopped with the PT as previously suggested, which I'm sure hurt her!! She's a VERY tough little dog, though, thank goodness. If any of this would have happened to Adam, our other dog, he would have screamed and cried the entire past 3 months - that dog has NO pain tolerance, but Daisy is a toughie and can take a lot.

So that's our story for today. Can't deny it.

1 comments:

Jane Smith said...

What we don't do for our pets! Poor little daisy! Oh! Poor Missy and Mark!! Good timing! Are you sure the vet knows what he's doing?!!! ;o)

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If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
- Chinese proverb
It is not the will of your Father that any one of these little ones should perish. Matt. 18:14

Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. Matt. 18:5

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

My family

My family
Nikolai, Mark, Missy, Reese, and Erik

Nikolai, 19

Nikolai, 19

Reese, 19

Reese, 19

Erik, 9

Erik, 9

Daisy

Daisy

Mary

Mary

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