Well, the prognosis for Kaia could have been better. After taking her to the vet(also a orthopedic surgeon), he immediately could tell that she had a luxating patella, so he went to compare her good leg and what do you know, she has it there too. And not even just a little, a grade 3 medial luxating patella in both legs. Basically, it is a congenital defect and someone should have know when she was 8 weeks old. So, since it is so bad (it only goes up to a grade 4) we have 6 months to a year before she HAS to have surgery. We are going to have a full set of x-rays done soon, probably in the beginning of next month, we have to find out exactly where it is and how bad it is as well as check on her hips and pray that her hips are not bad too.
He also said that she is very under developed for her age. He thought by looking at her teeth that she was about 5-6 months old, when she is actually almost 10 months. Her canines are not nearly normal sized for her age. The vet thinks that since Kaia was given to the shelter, beautifully groomed and extremely socialized as well as just all around well taken care of, that they probably found out that she had knee problems and didn't want to pay for it. Nice, huh? He said that ANY vet would have noticed with as bad as hers are.
The good news is that my vet knows us so well that they are willing to do a deal on price for us. We are getting the full set of x-rays, knees and hips as well as full sedation for about $150. The surgery is going to be about $1300 for both knees. Money, I DEFINITELY did not have just handy but we have a few months to save up for it. I hope that her hips are fine because if not, it is about $1500 per side to fix that. And we just do not have the money for that.
So, if you have any free time, pray that my pups hips are at least okay, PLEASE?? I will let everyone know what the x-rays show when that happens.
Thank you all for your kind words. Hopefully we will get her x-rayed in the next few weeks. The vet said he was not in a huge hurry, just within 6 months we needed to decide what we wanted to do. I guess alot of dogs get PTS due to owners not willing to pay to have it fixed. Poor Dogs. As long as we can pay our bills, and keep food on our table, all extra money will go to getting her happy and healthy.
We are picking the glucosamine up tomorrow. We had to wait because of the problems with our daughter but now that she is feeling better, we are going to grab that and work on making them both feel better.
I will keep my fingers crossed that her hips are AOK! Farley & Chloe said to let her know they'll keep their paws crossed for her too!
Kaia xx
