Wednesday, October 22, 2008

And the diagnosis is...

Severe hip dysplasia in left hip, and moderate in the right. She also has curves in her tibia (opposite of bowlegged), which the doctor said may cause some concern down the road some time. This was one of the biggest decisions we have made lately...don't know if we made the right one or not, only time will tell.

The Dr. said the best thing would be surgery that would cost $2000-$3000, however we can't afford that, so we are going to do the medication route, which is glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM for now, which should get her a "healthy" (for her) 4-5 years. At which time arthritis will probably start setting in, which then we will add a pain medication along with the other meds to help with that, which could get her another 3-4 years. I have read a lot on-line about dogs with severe hip dysplasia and they do the medicine route and they live a healthy 12-13 years on the medicine. We really want to give her a good 10 year life, and we think we will be able to do that. Who knows...maybe some day we will come into money and can pay for her to have surgery...one never knows. The Dr. said she could play, go for walks, up and down steps, etc. We figured if she went back to the shelter, they would probably label her "unadoptable" once they called our Dr. and got the medical diagnosis, and they would put her down. I just had a really hard time with that, I guess I just have a soft heart, and she is/acts so "normal" you would never know about all of her problems. The kids love her, we did talk to them about if it was so bad that we couldn't give her a good life, we would have to take her back...just telling Becca that made her cry, I couldn't imagine telling her we took her back. So...her treatment will cost about $18.00 a month (pretty cheap compared to the surgery...at least right now, depending on how long she lives...it could be more than the surgery...I'll take those odds though...I want to be that family that writes that we did the medication route and our dog lived another 12-13 years).

Ok...enough with that...

Nothing much is new. My mom's birthday is tomorrow, so we celebrated with her and my sister/brother in law tonight. Kids are good. Jason and I are good. Mollie has taken all of my emotional energy lately...I feel so tired...I'm ready for bed. Just glad that she is here, we know what to expect in the future, and we have a dog (that has some birth defects), but that we love anyways!!!
I don't like looking at the camera...but aren't I pretty???

Who me??

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