July 15, 2010
Just got back home from Cornell around 11pm. We rushed Riley to Cornell Monday (last blog entry) after he seemed to re-injure his elbow, and he ended up staying the night. He was penciled in for a sedation, exam, and surgery in the morning, but due to some emergencies at the hospital yesterday, and was scheduled to be examined by a team of surgeons on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, their conclusion was to schedule him an operating table on Wednesday, and to make a couple of game-time decisions after sedating him, getting a little more radiography done, and then starting the operation(s) while he was still under. Unfortunately, there were a couple of emergencies yesterday, so Riley got bumped to today for all of that, and had to spend another day and night at Cornell. So this morning rolls around and the team got into him. We were fully expecting to have one or both legs operated on, but upon closer inspection, the surgeons couldn't identify a clean break in Riley's right elbow. There has been so much calcification built up from his healing process that it is hard to get a good view from an x-ray, and furthermore, any fusion or reconstructive surgery to the elbow joint has a very low chance of a good outcome. So no procedures were done, and the surgeons figured that the best plan of action would be to immobilize Riley's right leg, and give him a week to heal in the hopes that he will show some improvement. If he does, then he will continue to have both legs for at least another month or two. The purpose of this plan is to keep Riley on 4 legs as long as possible to give his left leg a chance to even out. There is clearly a problem with his left wrist, and we don't think that it is ready to bear the weight that it would need to if it were his only front leg. The best case scenario is that his right leg shows improvement by next Friday when he goes back to Cornell for another visit. If it doesn't, then we will probably have to just amputate sooner than later. He has also been prescribed a brace for his left wrist that will help keep it from turning outward and staying that way, which it seems to be doing. The surgeons also noticed that he has diminished flexion in his left wrist, which shows that there is probably a different issue than what we had originally thought.
We went over some things that we could do to help Riley recover this week, including swimming whenever possible, and a couple of short walks every day to keep his muscles from atrophying, and try to get him to bear some weight with his right leg. We spent a solid two hours talking to Riley's doctor and intern. Everyone at the
Cornell Animal Hospital has been unbelievably great. I mean REALLY great. They are constantly in communication with us, updating us on Riley's condition and answering questions. When we drove down to visit Riley yesterday after work, Riley's intern spent at least an hour with us answering questions and going over every detail of all of our options. Every person on their staff seems to be genuinely caring, helpful, extremely competent, generous with their time, and incredibly good about communication. It has been a LONG time since I've seen this level of skill and professionalism from
anyone in
any industry. These people are incredible, and although Riley is in an awful and complicated situation, I am very glad to have them in his corner.
So, Riley is home right now with some good pain management meds and a great big e-collar to keep him from chewing up his cast and wraps. He looks pretty exhausted, hopefully he is somewhat comfortable and gets a lot of rest tonight.
I'm off to bed. I will hopefully get another blog entry in tomorrow, we went over a LOT at Cornell today, and I'm pretty sure that I've left some stuff out, but I'm really pooped. Thanks again for your donations and prayers, we all really appreciate it.
July 12, 2010
We are rushing Riley to Cornell University. He was walking through the livingroom, saw his toy and pranced excitedly to go get it. All of a sudden his leg bent in a horrible position and he collapsed yelping. The Xrays Fairmount took indicated that his elbow may be "split in half"! I don't understand how this happened... Please keep up your thoughts and prayers for our poor pup!
July 8, 2010
We saw Dr. Bookbinder today from Upstate Veterinary Hospital. He gave us very encouraging news!! Riley's right leg may be savable and with a different surgery than initially proposed his left ankle may not need to be fused. YAY! They plan on taking a piece of his left ulnar bone out to help his paw straighten and allow the growth plate to correct itself and we are going to wait a few months to see if the arthritis, that has set into right elbow, will possibly fuse the joint on its own. Obviously he will not have great flexibility in that leg but he will be able to use it to bear weight and not be in pain. Keeping the right leg will also keep added stress off his healing left leg. Please everyone pray for the best!
July 4, 2010
Riley's first July 4th celebration!!! We spent the day at the lake and had a great time. Riley made lots of new friends and we learned that he is afraid of close fireworks. We also learned that not all dogs can swim naturally oops! We had a couple minor drowning incidents but he made it to shore and will be starting water therapy soon. Hopefully it will help strengthen his left leg.
July 1st, 2010
Riley just met with the orthopedic specialist and it turns out he has a fracture in his right elbow and shoulder that has improperly healed and has turned arthritic. He left wrist was apparently fractured as well, which slowed down the growth plate near his paw causing the paw to turn sideways. The doctor says that his right leg needs to be amputated but we need to wait for his left leg to straighten out first so he can continue to support his weight in the front. if the left leg doesn't correct itself he will need to have his left wrist fused before amputating the right leg...we were not prepared for this :(
June 27, 2010
We picked up Riley in Albany after he was transported to us from Dallas, Georgia! He was rescued from a shelter that was closing down for renovations and planned to put down all unadopted pets.
