How Far will we go?

As a few of you know last April 6th 2007 our female greyhound Heaven shattered her right front leg. I've owned and been heavily involved with greyhounds for almost 20 yrs now and this is the first greyhound I've had break without hitting or being hit by something. Contrary to the fact they look very fragile they are incredible tough.

Heavens leg was bad enough we had to take her to an Orthopedic Veterinary surgeon. That alone tells you it wasn't going to be a cheap fix. We are not poor, but we're not wealthy, definitely on the lower end of middle class so being presented with an estimate of $2,800 to fix the leg staggered us. We'd already paid $300 for the trip to the emergency clinic to have the leg put in a temporary cast. Sitting there in the surgeons office we seriously discussed both euthanasia and amputation.

Yes, greyhounds can do perfectly well on 3 legs, but they don't have any fall back position if the other leg gets injured. We live in a house with stairs to get in and out on acreage with lots of rodent holes and other hazards. Sprains and scrapes are the norm around here. We bit the bullet and agreed to the $2,800 fix.

Long story short, today is January 19th 2008 and Heaven is hopping around in a cast after her 5th surgery. What went wrong? A lot. Was it the surgeons fault, no. Was it something we did or didn't do, no. Bad luck from beginning to last Jan 6th when we came home to find the leg had broken again. How much have we spent, well over double the original cost. It would have been more but the surgeon ate 90% of the cost of the last surgery and has agreed if this time doesn't work he will amputate for free.

Yes, we stopped at several points and looked again at our options of euthanasia and amputation. Each time the option of going forward with more treatment was the best one at the time to make. The set backs and near disasters never gave us the absolute line to stop at. Even the surgeon who has been practicing for decades has been shaking his head at all Heaven has gone thru.

A friend asked me if I would go through it all again if I knew we'd end up still in a cast 9 months later. I really can't answer that question right now. If the permanent steel plate attached to the bone keeps her as a happy quadruped then yeah I'd do it again, but we won't know that for many months. The money is gone, the projects we had planned postponed, the vacations cancelled, our debt level is higher than we're happy with, but I am very glad she is still with us with 4 on the floor.

The first week in April this year is the current heal by date to see if the plate has worked. A full year after we started. Ask me in June or July how I'm feeling and how the VISA balance is fairing. If she is still running around on 4 paws by April of 2009 I am going to get my first ever tattoo. Her right paw print surrounded by celtic knot work.