Cone Be Gone!!!!

June 17, 2011 - Two weeks after Poutine's surgery. We went to our vet, Dr. Max Rossetti, to have the stitches removed. Dr. Rossetti said Poutine is doing very well, his knees were very bad and it was a very successful surgery. He took out the stitches and announced that Poutine doesn’t have to wear the cone anymore. YAAAY!!!!!!! He’s allowed to lick the incisions a little bit, but not to the point of making it turns red.

This is how Dr. Rossetti removed the stitches: He snipped off the two knots at each end of the incision, then pulled the string at one end and the whole strand came out. It was so quick and easy. Poutine just fussed once.

We finished off Poutine’s medication today as well. The vet said no more medicine, another YAAAY!!!!!! You have no idea how much I (or Poutine and I) hated those gigantic pills.

We were supposed to have another follow up appointment 4-6 weeks later, but Poutine is doing so well that the vet said we could just give him a call at that time. He’s only concerned if Poutine’s limping. Dr. Rossetti did not charge us for this visit at all. (He did not do the surgery, so it's not like he got paid already.) He is such a wonderful vet.

This has been a long and tough 2 weeks. It will be another two months before Poutine is allowed to go back to normal activities, but it is all worth it. At the beginning, I was so worried about little things like how will he pee or poop right after the surgery? How do I know when he could stand on his legs? How do I know when he could walk? Is he going to be in pain and for how long? What happens if he refused to use his hind legs? And so on. But you know what? After we took him home from the surgery, everything just happened on its own. For us human, it sure felt like hell, but Poutine bounced back little by little each and every day. They live by the moment and don’t dwell on what happened. They will let you know how they feel and what they can't & can do, you’ll just have to follow their instinct. In Poutine’s case, I had to restrain him instead!

Thank you all for following Poutine’s blog. I will update his progress less frequently now, maybe once a week until his 2-month recuperation is up. Then I will blog about other general stuff as they come up. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions regarding luxating patella.