One step at a time


Yesterday was one month to the day since Dogger hurt her knee. I haven’t had to chant, cheer or cajole her into doing anything in probably a week and a half. She continues to eat and void normally and her diet has been a rousing success, she looks fabulous and the weight loss has clearly taken some pressure off her knee.

In the evenings, after work I take Dogger out for her pre-dinner pee, on advice of one of the R.N’s at work, I let Dogger lay in the sun for as long as she wants to in order to help her joints loosen up and let get some fresh air. I no longer hustle her back inside (why???) immediately like I was. I bring a magazine outside and tie Dogger to her tie down and we both chill for a while. Dogger bakes in the sun for a while and I can think of worse ways to wind down after work than sitting on my front steps reading a magazine. I’m thinking after this winter when Gawd closes down his sauna that I am going to get her a heating pad for her knee so it doesn’t get locked up or painful because of the cold. Arthritis in that knee is a real issue now.

Miss Dogger has graduated from being bed fast  twenty hours a day to moving back into her old room and her old bed and she now she gets up to greet me at the door in the mornings, instead of being  a lump in her crate and making me the worlds grumpiest cheerleader at 6am every morning to force her up and out. She seems happy about being off of bed rest and I think it’s improved her all ready good spirits and for some reason her rehab has also appeared moved forward since she moved back into her room.  Regardless of her sleeping arrangements, she is still taking her pain meds and will be through out the course of her recovery and rehabilitation.

When I take her out to pee, she no longer needs to lay down and rest every few minutes, an unwelcome part of her post-injury routine that caused a lot of cheering and chanting. Tuesday, she didn’t want to go back inside in the morning, but it was because the workers at the drug dealers house had left the basement lights on all night and Dogger was curious about them, but as soon as I told her to get up, she did. She’s doing everything she did before only now when she does it, she hops. The good news is that when she walks deliberately and slowly, she uses all four legs and the damaged leg appears to be weight bearing - But if she wants to get anywhere faster than a slow walk, she hops to where she wants to go. When she stands she appears to be standing on the tip toe of the hurt leg and that it seems to be for balance. I’m a little worried about the muscles in her injured leg atrophying and her “good” leg getting over worked.

Four weeks in I’m feeling hopeful about her recovery. I worry that she’s never going to be like she was four weeks  and two days ago and I really miss that dog.  I’m afraid that the running, jumping and fetching chapter of ours lives is behind us now and that makes me want to cry. I’m afraid that I’m so happy she’s alive that I’m blinded to fact that just living isn’t the same as having a life.

So far though she seems happy enough and to be adjusting quickly to the way things are now and she way she is now, and in fact, she seems to be adjusting to everything better than I am.