Well my second to last day revolved around a female boxer that came in for a "redo" on her R cruciate. Last fall Dr. Powell did a cruciate surgery on this dog and two weeks later, during her post-op recovery period, she slipped and fell on the same leg. She came up lame, so her owners took her back in to see Dr. Powell. He performed a drawer test and rads were taken of her stifle. The doctor determined that she probably pulled something in the fall and to give the swelling some time to decrease. He sent the dog home with some pain killers and anti-inflammatory meds.
Four months later... The boxer's owners call back in saying she hasn't been putting any weight on the leg since their last visit. Dr. Powell had the dog come in for a "redo" sx.
Once she arrived we had her in radiology to take some rads and to Dr. Powell nothing had changed with the implant in 4 months. Lynn catheterized and induced while I intubated the dog. Lynn also did the prep on the patient. The dog was put on fluids, LRS with a ketamine CRI, maintained at a surgical rate.
Dr. Powell made the incision along the scar from the previous sx. I had asked him prior to going into sx where he was going to make the incision, whether or not he would make it along the old scar. He explained that vets are taught to cut along the scar b/c there are already fibroblasts, etc at the site and supposedly it speeds healing for the second incision.
The doctor spent the next 20 min looking for the implant and had to step away to have another look at the rads. He came back with a better idea of where the implant slipped. Dr. Powell only took a few more minutes to find the implant. The nylon cord had snapped clean. He replaced the implant with a new one and had the incision closed within 15min. Our patient got a dose of hydromorphone just before she was extubated. We left her on fluids for the remainder of the day.
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