R's Elbow

We have R on our minds because we meet with a surgeon tomorrow about his bad elbow.

R has probably never known a time in his life when his elbow didn't hurt. He was born with a congenital defect - elbow dysplasia. He had his first surgery on his first birthday. It was an arthroscopic clean-out of the bad cartilage and the bone chips floating in the joint space. That surgery gave him an excellent five years, within the perspective of a dog with elbow dysplasia.

Then, his limp became worse again, and he had another arthroscopic clean-out a couple of years ago. That one wasn't as helpful as the first one. After it, the surgeon told us that R had "end-stage" osteoarthritis in his elbow. Essentially, that meant that the weight-bearing surfaces had almost no cartilage left on them. Nevertheless, that surgery bought us a couple of years of R being very active and not showing too much pain.

I like to think that I understand what R is going through. My spine degeneration started in my teen years, and I now have several vertebrae that are bone-on-bone because the disks have degenerated away. It's painful but I choose to be active and live the way I love to live even if it hurts.

R is intense and adores romping in the forest - we share that trait for sure! So, based on my experiences and our gut feeling, we've allowed R to remain active within reason.

But now, we are all worrying about R. When he can, he hides his limp except when he's in the privacy of our house with only us present. Recently, he can't hide it anymore - so we feel that we have to do something.

Tomorrow, we'll be discussing a very new surgery that can be used on "older" dogs who have end-stage osteoarthritis from elbow dysplasia. Very few vets know how to do the surgery. It involves inserting metal implants that will be the new weight-bearing surfaces within the joint.

I hope that the surgeon feels confident that R is still a candidate for the surgery. I also hope that we feel confident that the surgeon is experienced enough to do it. He's the only one in our area who has ever done the "CUE" surgery. The alternative would be to travel someplace else to have the surgery done but that's not easy, especially since we feel that R needs surgical intervention soon.

I'm sorry not to be more upbeat today but I couldn't fake an unworried post (I tried, and I failed!). I always feel it's best to be authentic - so I shared what's on my mind.