Lennon’s Surgery – Week #1

So, last week was Lennon’s first ACL surgery. She had her back, left leg operated on, because the left leg was worse than the right. We originally started out with the “referral” we got from our regular vet. He referred us to some surgical specialist, who quoted us for a TPLO surgery. TPLO is one of the top-notch, “gold-star” (as they put it) surgeries that you can get to help with a torn ACL. It doesn’t actually fix or repair the ACL in any way. It changes the angle of the knee, so your knee no longer needs an ACL. I don’t really get how it works or how it fixes the problem, but I’ve heard and read a lot about it by this point.

Of course, we wanted to do the right thing and fix Lennon’s legs, but something that would have ended up costing about $10,000 in the end is just crazy. We went and saw another vet for a consultation about other surgery options. I’ve read before that there are about 4 surgery options for this problem, so I wanted to hear about something other than TPLO.

We took our “pup” to my family’s old vet (before I was married) to see what options they could give us. They talked about a surgery called TTA, which is essentially the same as the TPLO (just not copyrighted), and another surgery called Lateral Suture Stabilization in which the vet replaces the old ACL with nylon fiber.

After a lot of questions and research, we decided to go with the Lateral Suture Stabilization technique, because it was better than nothing, and our vet said the results are just as good as the other surgeries. It takes a little longer to heal from this surgery, but he said he sees very similar results in the end.

We dropped Lennon off on Thursday of last week and picked her up the next day. They wanted to keep her overnight to make sure everything was ok. The surgery took about 2 hours (1.5 was the predicted time, so the extra 30 minutes cost us extra), but the vet was able to put in 2 nylon fibers, one acting as a back up. She is a stubborn, thick-headed dog, so we were happy to hear the words “back up.”

When we picked her up, she was doped up and making sad noises in the car, but she came home and slept a good bit. We have to keep her in a crate for 2 months to ensure proper healing time, but we are ok with that, and Lennon is making her peace with it as well. She only comes out when we take her outback on a leash and with a back sling (to help keep weight off her leg), so it takes 2 people to let her pee. She also enjoys her passive therapy or range of motion therapy, because it means she gets to lay on the living room floor for a while.

Passive therapy or range of motion therapy is when you move the leg and replicate the natural walking/running movements, so the muscle doesn’t get stiff. She doesn’t really like it sometimes, but that is expected. We have to ice her leg afterward to help with the pain, but she is such a trooper.

Since this surgery takes longer to heal, I opted for the laser treatments for her. We take her to the vet 6 times (3 times the first week, 2 times the second week, and 1 time the third week) to have them put a cold laser on the incision and the affected area, which helps reduce inflammation and pain and also increases circulation back to the muscles.

These pictures are from week 1 of the surgery. She had some really bad razor burn, but other than that, the incision is really clean and is healing WONDERFULLY. The vet is also amazed at how resilient she is. I am not surprised, because Lennon seriously is the most stubborn dog I’ve ever met. She will not rest until she does what she wants to do, which in this case… is good. It means she is trying to walk on the leg more. She isn’t putting her weight on it, but she is fully extending it and trying to walk with it. According to the vet, she is about a week further than most dogs are when they have ACL surgery.

When I get to my scanner, I will post the quoted prices of both surgeries for those people out there who are querying “dog ACL surgery prices.” When I searched on Google, I didn’t find much on prices, so hopefully this will help others looking for more information.