Sadie's story

Owner: Melinda E-mail: freychar@silcon.com Date posted: August 8, 2000 I am actually writing to share what we consider to be a TPLO nightmare that we are still hoping will end well ... It all started at the end of May when our 11 year old dog Sadie (a lab pointer mix) stopped eating. At first we thought it might be she was being finicky because she was acting fine but after a day or two we called the vet. Her blood tests showed elevated liver enzymes so we brought her to the doggie specialists. After x-rays did not show any abnormalities she had to have a liver biposy. It turned out she had somehow gotten hepatitis. They don't know how dogs get it but nonethelss she had it. Treatment for it was high doses of Prednisone. And so the nightmare began. We were not advised of the various side effects of Prednisone. Apparently they are numerous. One of them is lethargy and joint weakness. So a few weeks into her treatment we noticed she was lame, one of her back legs was thumping through the house. A trip to the same specialist, she had one of surgeons check her leg and advised us she had torn her cruciate ligament. We had to follow up with an appointment with the surgeon about one-week later. He also told us it was common to see this type of injury after a dog has been on "Pred." And when he examined her it turned out she had torn the ligament in one knee and had a partial in the other. What to do? Which type of surgery? When? Both legs at the same time was clearly out of the question. The fact that Sadie was still on the Pred was a consideration, but at that point the surgeon and doctor treating her liver thought that it was still ok to proceed with TPLO of the left knee. So on July 6, 2000 we brought her in for the surgery. She made it through fine and we brought her home a couple of days later. When we brought her back to have her staples removed about one-week later, the doctor immediately told us he did not think the leg looked right. It turned out 4 of the 6 screws had come loose. Had we done something wrong? We thought we had followed all directions but maybe we had let her put weight on too quickly? He wanted to do another surgery ... So on July 17 2000, Sadie had a second surgery. A second plate was put in and she made it through the second surgery fine. She came home a few days later on July 22, 2000. This time with a big bandage that seemed to us to make it really difficult for her to move around. We watched her like a hawk. We carried her up and down stairs and even slept on the floor next to her in a small room to make sure she did not move around a lot. (The bandage was so big and cumbersome that we could not fit Sadie in the kennel we had brought home.) Although we now knew more about how the leg should look the bandage made it impossible for us to really see what the leg was doing so we had no way of judging whether the leg looked right or not. After the first surgery failed we wondered aloud with the vet whether the Pred was the problem and begged to have the dosage reduced as quickly as possible. Her liver functioning was doing fine. It was reduced but she was still taking it even after the second surgery. On July 26, 2000 we brought her in for a bandage change. And then the bad news came again. The screws had come loose again. At this point we all knew that the problem was not her movement, but the Pred. Not enough calcium because of the Pred and therefore Sadie's bones were not healing. They were too soft etc. Our vet was clearly upset and determined to somehow make it right ... so a third surgery (this time at no charge) was performed on July 27, 2000. He bracketed Sadie's shin bone with two metal plates and ran a narrow steel rod down her bone marrow cavity. On July 29, 2000 she had her last dose of Pred. We kept her in the hospital until August 1, 2000 and have had her home since. She came home without a bandage and we bought an even bigger kennel for her which is where she is going to live for a while. Without the Pred she is much more lively and herself. So far the leg looks like it is OK. We are cautiously optimistic. There is no question for us that the surgery should not have been done while Sadie was still on the Pred. We feel like we were given some bad advice. We don't feel there was any ill intent. Just bad advice. We wish now that we had done more research before proceeding. We decided to tell Sadie's story for anyone with a dog on Pred that has torn the cruciate ligament. Don't let anyone tell you it is OK to perform the surgery. Wait until the dog is off Pred. Walking around with a torn ligament for a few more weeks could NEVER be worse than what Sadie has endured. UPDATE: August 28, 2000: Sadie had x-rays on Saturday (August 26, 2000) - four weeks after the third surgery and she is finally on the road to recovery. She is healing and we can start letting her walk short distances without the sling. She is more herself everyday and so we continue to be hopeful that she will make a full recovery. UPDATE: October 3, 2000: On September 23, 2000 we took Sadie in for x-rays and learned that her knee had fully healed. Unfortunately, her health had taken a turn for the worse over the preceding few days. She was not eating again, was drinking excessively again and had other signs of being a very sick doggie. She was put back on Pred to treat her liver again and we were very hopeful that she would respond to it as she had before. But early the next morning Sadie was on her way outside, and as she stepped out the back door she fell over and had a massive seizure. We had to rush her to the emergency room. They gave her Valium to stop the seizure, which was apparently caused by the build-up of toxins in her system due to her liver disease. We had to make the very difficult and painful decision to put her down. We don't know if having the TPLO surgery hastened her death because she had to be taken off the Pred in order for the leg to heal, but we certainly believe this is the case. We also are having a very difficult time living with the fact that her last few months with us were confined to house and kennel because of the surgery. Needless to say we have plenty of ill will toward the surgeon who did not fully consider all of the risks for her. We miss her terribly. She was a wonderful sweet dog. We hope that some other dog owner(s) in a similar situation will read this and learn from it. It is the best way we can think of to honor her memory.