Surgery Update: 7 Weeks

Today was a huge milestone for Sadie - her first day of physical therapy! My awesome friend Julie came over to watch the girls, as the first appointment was supposed to be 2 hours long. And it pretty much was.

The therapist, Holly, was very, very, very nice and great with Sadie. I loved her. We spent a while going over Sadie's case history and she did an exam of Sadie - basically getting a baseline of heart rate and temp, but focusing on all of her joints and the range of motion on all her legs. She thought that Sadie's "bad" knee joint felt "really good." However, there's not much muscle mass there and Sadie has about 20 degrees less than normal range of motion in that leg.

Holly said that she is probably not likely to regain 100% range of motion, due to the heavy amount of scar tissue that has been built up in there. She recommended we stay on pain meds throughout her therapy, or at least just give her a pain pill on the days she has therapy. We will do six sessions, and about two a week (ideally).

Holly sent us home with a list of exercises and stretches to do with Sadie. She's not a vet herself, but she was very knowledgeable and I almost wish we had seen her sooner. She mentioned that it may have been better for Sadie to have been walking around a bit on the leg, even while it was still draining and open. She also suggested maybe heating it a bit during that time might have stimulated blood flow to the area and helped flush out the "bad stuff." But, she said that different folks have different opinions on that. It doesn't do us any good to play the "what if" game at this point.

Now what you're all curious about: the infamous WATER TREADMILL (aka water DREADmill...). Sadie did great! I was shocked! We only did about 3 minutes of it, and will gradually build up. There was one moment at the beginning where she briefly freaked out, but after that she walked steadily on. You can tell she was very nervous about it, though, since she was panting heavily and would not take a treat during or right after the experience.

I took a video, true to word, but was so caught up in the moment that most of it is sideways... Oops! I found some software to edit it back to normal, so enjoy. Future sessions will be around an hour long. I may bring the girls with me to some of them, especially when Sadie is more comfortable with the treadmill. I trust Holly, she greatly impressed me.