So the last you saw my foster pups, the cute little Niko was hanging out, looking adorable on the new lime green couch and learning to climb the stairs. Now, he's still lounging on the couch (on a pink towel, placed not so much to deal with pet hair as to deal with my nasty post-run body before I make it to the shower,) but less happily. His right rear leg looked like it had a old injury or maybe a congenital issue, but he still ran around the park like a little crazy dog. Things went awry on Saturday, just hours before I'd planned to send him to doggie daycare for the weekend so he wouldn't have to be crated while I ran.
It turns out that the boy's leg was in such a precarious state that a little bump from another dog was enough to fracture a growth plate in his tibia. All we knew was that he was hurting, so instead of couch-potatoing as I'd planned on Saturday, we went to the vet. Got some painkillers and a referal to an orthopedic clinic. The rescue director brought him to the ortho on Wednesday. Final diagnosis - old fracture of the femur that healed poorly and resulted in a ruptured ligament and floating kneecap. That caused instability that led to a tiny little bump causing his tibia to break with just a gentle bump.
This is what his normal leg looks like:
You can see both old and new breaks as well as the kneecap displacement. Poor little guy had probably been covering up a lot of pain before this. In a sense, it's good that this happened now, so that we can be sure he gets the treatment he needs. So far, this has cost in the range of $600 between me and the rescue (I'm considering paying the vet bills for the visits I take him on as my contribution to the fundraising) and we're working every angle we can for fundraising. I'm even learning about grants. The most helpful thing has been crowdfunding through our You Caring page. We're hoping to get his surgery done next week while I'm doing some traveling so that he can do his initial recovery with the rescue director and then come to me until he's able to be put up for adoption.
All of this and the boy is only about 8 months old!
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to show you pictures of me in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial with a finisher's medal and a grin on my face.
great to see u again hope ur joints recover soon
Posted by: Peterhazaria34 | November 13, 2013 at 03:44 AM