Orthopedic Surgery- "M"

Friday, June 10, 2011
Orthopedic Surgery- "M"
M is an 8 year old Golden Retriever who came in morbidly obese (secondary to recently diagnosed hypothyroidism) and completely non-ambulatory in the back because he had ruptured both his cranial cruciate ligaments.

Cranial Cruciate Ligament ruptures are like ACL tears in humans. If you've ever met someone with an ACL tear, they are incredibly painful! Especially if the medial meniscus gets involved.

We performed Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomies on both of his legs at the same time. I got to put in 1 bone screw in each leg! While the first 24 hours after surgery were pretty painful, he was way better than when he came in the day after surgery. It was really awesome to see.

The only problem with him was that his owner was away on a business trip and he ended up spending nearly a week longer in the hospital than he needed to. For a while, M went on a hunger strike. I went through almost every food in our dog food kitchen. I tried puppy food of several brands, I tried the high calorie recovery foods, I tried baby food, I tried hot dogs and hamburgers and chicken breast. He'd eat maybe one bite of anything new then refuse to eat more. Finally, while some of my classmates were eating lunch, he looker interested in their food and willingly ate their leftovers. We were ecstatic! I think he ended up with nearly a pound of turkey and brisket that day. Then we fed.him Turkey lunch meat (with progressively more dog food and less turkey until he was on just dog food.)