Week 1 of Rehab Walks Down

Alright, so this whole weekly update thing is not my forte this go around. I blame it on school. It's consuming my life! BUT, back to business, Heidi is still doing well, although we had a super small scare. Two Monday's ago, right after my last post, I came home from work and Heidi's incision was really really red and raw. She still had her stitches in and they seemed to be bothering her. I think the redness/rawness was from her licking them, so Alex and I decided to go ahead and take them out. It was day 11 post-op so it was within that 14 day window and I could tell the incision itself was closed. She would not let me touch that area so it made the suture removal pretty difficult. I forced my husband to hold her down (He HATES having to do that to his "baby") and I was finally able to get them all out after a huge struggle. I rinsed the area really well before and after with a disinfectant solution (Nolvasan) I got from the vet at another visit just as a precaution in case the redness was the beginnings of an infection, and decided to watch it closely for the next few days before panicking. I monitored her constantly for signs and symptoms of infection (increased redness, swelling, heat from the incision, smelly yellow drainage/pus), and luckily over the next few days the redness decreased and my worries slowly disappeared. Also, in the last post I talked about how crazy her knee looked because that one part was very swollen. Well, the swelling has gone down A LOT at this point and looks fairly normal (for a knee that has been through 3 surgeries)! I am a little disappointed because Heidi is still favoring that leg. We started her 5 minute rehab walks this week and they actually seem to make her limp slightly worse. At the same time, she LOVES her walks, so I don't want to stop. Next week we start 10 minute walks, so we'll see how that goes. I am just hoping this surgery will take a little longer to recover from since they took cartilage out of her knee. Like I mentioned before, something I read said to expect the dog to limp for 4-6 weeks and yesterday was the end of week 3. Thinking about that makes me feel a little better. We're only halfway through that time frame and she has made vast improvements. I can only hope it will continue. Send positive thoughts our way for the next few weeks and I'll try to update when I can!