It seems there might be something wrong with Chami’s “good” leg and I spent a lot of time lying awake last night pondering the possibilities. I was up before the final alarm at 6:30 to check on our girl and knead the muscles in her hips and thighs. When Bob got up he took Chami in his arms and carried her outside to pee. There were some signs of improvement, a cause for hope. She was able to stand a bit better…enough to squat, with some support from us of course, and she wasn’t as groggy. Because she was famished again we set her food out (laced with medicine) 10 feet from her bed. The incentive was powerful enough to get her to hobble on her own to the food, forcing her to figure out how to walk with the splint on. For some reason she finds it easier to scoot backwards and a bit sideways but after 5 to 10 feet she sits down hard and fast (a.k.a. controlled collapsed?).

I spoke with the vet tech as soon as they opened and she was concerned enough to have us come right in. She mentioned the possibility of having “thrown a blood clot” during surgery, kind of like a minor stroke, which can cause nerve problems that result in “knuckling”, and possible crippling.

Dr. Bertram snipped off miles of wrap then took the full length plastic splint off. She thought another options for Chami being unable to ambulate was that her left leg, the “good” one, was a lot weaker from arthritis and past injuries than any of us realized. Susan conjectured that Chami may have been compensating for years by mostly using her right leg, which is now in a cast. Next, Susan took a hacksaw to the bottom of the splint, removed two inches, making it so the bottom of the cast ended just above Chami’s paw, instead of just below it, as it had been. If the problem was weakness in her left leg, the theory is that this shorter cast might allow Chami to use her right leg more by distributing the weight to both legs. After re-splinting and rewrapping the leg, Susan did some muscle mobility tests on Chami’s “good” leg and determined that indeed it was severely undermined by arthritis and that she was experiencing a lot of pain. With a cast now on her right leg she is forced to use her “bad” leg, which doesn’t have the strength too support her, hence the inability to stand or walk, and the knuckling. The good news is that it wasn’t a nerve issue and with some physical therapy–which Bob and I will perform– she should get back to walking on her own in a week or so.

Back home Chami was much more alert. We flip her over and massage her legs, back and hips every couple hours, and make her walk across the room every three hours. Because we have slippery wood floors we’ve had to bring in industrial type skid resistant carpets so the house has been transformed into a Chami rehab facility.  

I took Mom and Dad to a house concert to hear a Celtic folk singer and songwriter from Perth, Scotland. We had to waste Bob’s ticket because one of us needed to stay home with the Chami in case she got in a jam. The musician had a sweet, smooth voice and was good enough on his guitar but in all honesty I would have rather spent the snowing, howling evening at home with my family.