broken bella beagle

Bella's wounds up close

Blog kitt decided around 23:15 on 6 May 2009 to publish this:

Okay, so, these wounds on Bella really fascinate me. Martha, you really don't want to click through.

Fun with a cone!

Blog kitt decided around 22:22 on 6 May 2009 to publish this:

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Bella breaks again

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 18:20 on 24 February 2008

Kris and I went up to the school to walk the dogs. Well, that's why Kris went. I went to run today's sprint workout. I took a bit of time to set up my cones, put on my cleats, and generally gather myself, so Kris and the girls were off in the distance the field by the time I was ready to run.

I jogged over to Kris to give him a kiss and run a little warmup before I started. On my way back to the starting point, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and realized the dogs ran back with me to the starting cone. So, I turned back around to run them back to Kris. They came along, though Bella not so willingly. She seemed to want some play time, so I turned to chase her.

She juked one way, and I chased her. She zoomed another way, so I chased her that way. After less than a minute, she seemed done, so I went back to pick up a few things I dropped before chasing her. Kris called out, "What's wrong with her?" I looked back.

Bella was eating grass, where she was just sitting a moment before. When she stood up, she was limping, her front right foot clearly giving her problems. She could walk, but was walking with a pronounced limp.

Great. Just great. We had just witnessed the return of Broken Bella Beagle. Just what this house needs: TWO broken dogs.

Broken Bella Beagle, part 3

Blog Instead of being asleep at 13:17 on 23 August 2004, kitt created this:

Broken Bella Beagle went in for surgery today. She's getting TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy) on her back left leg.

A description of the surgery's function: 

All of the other cruciate repair techniques replace the cruciate ligament
in some manner.  TPLO instead changes the bone structure in the dog's 
knee joint so that the bone angles are different and the cruciate ligament
isn't as critical.

Rotating the tibial plateau until it is level changes the biomechanics 
of the knee joint. After leveling the tibial plateau, the patellar tendon
and the caudal cruciate ligament take over the function of the ruptured
cranial cruciate ligament. The cranial cruciate is then no longer needed.

Bella comes back tomorrow.

Broken Bella Beagle, part 2

Blog kitt decided around 13:46 on 26 July 2004 to publish this:

Yep. Bella's injured. After a full night of carrying her everywhere, Kris called the vet this morning. We took her in for an appointment, where Dr. McClenahan checked Bella over.

Two relatively howl-free X-rays later, we had confirmation of a torn cruciate ligament.

We're supposed to keep Bella off her leg as much as possible, but let her walk if she wants to (she can't injure it much worse), give her painkillers daily, make sure there's no rough housing with Annie, run Annie a lot to tire her out, and see how Bella is in a week. If she's having problems in a week, consider surgery.

Surgery. Great. After the $300 bill for the diagnosis, we'll have another $3000 bill for the surgery. Whoo.

Now, why didn't we get a cat?