Picture Post

Jake is almost 5 weeks post surgery.  Some days his leg seems to be healing fine. Other days he still limps a lot. The vet said it could take 8-12 months until he regains normal function of his leg again. We have moved into the physical therapy phase. He loves that he gets to go on 2 walks a day!

He is a happy guy when he is on his walks.  No more sad-looking doggie here.

This sweet girl's favorite game right now is "restaurant".  She LOVES to play it. She looks adorable as a little carhop!

We had a very dry monsoon season.  We had our first and only monsoon about 2 weeks ago. The dry river bed no longer dry.

And our path to our neighbors was no longer dry.  I know it doesn't rain here often so I enjoyed every last drop of rain that fell.

We had picture day at school. Looking so grown up.

We took advantage of Kripsy Kreme's pirate day.

Such a mean little pirate!

I guess even donuts can make a pirate happy. We got a free dozen donuts just for dressing like a pirate. So fun.

C loves to take baths but only if she can do it my big tub.  She says she is too old for bath toys now, but she did spend about 20 minutes being creative with some bath crayons.  

She got invited to her first birthday party this year. It was for her friend Hudson that she met at summer camp this summer. He is in 2nd grade and goes to her school. He has a bit of a crush on C. She was the only person outside of his class that was invited. 

I have been SO BAD about updating this blog.  I am going to try to get caught up this week. 

Wordless Wednesday

Jake's Big Boo Boo

My poor baby boy Jake hurt himself almost 3 weeks ago. He was being his normal self racing around the back yard. When he let out a huge cry and pulled his leg up.  It was a Saturday but luckily our vet was open. We took him right in and were told her probably tore his ACL.  Very common in bigger dogs.  

The vet sent us home with pain meds and a referral to a surgery center.  We had to wait until Monday morning. 

When Jake hurt himself C became hysterical. She was screaming and crying his name over and over.  She thought he was dying. It was sad but at the same time so sweet. 

C was a wonderful nurse to Jake. She gave him lots of TLC and had to bring all her dog friends near him to make him feel better. Oh and also some tea.

Jake was heavily drugged and laid around for the next 2 days.

Finally on Monday morning we headed to the surgery center. They did some evaluations on him and did conclude he tore his ACL.  His surgery was going to cost $3900!! And it wasn't even guaranteed to fix his leg 100%.  Later that night my friend Amber sent me a note saying there is another type of surgery to fix the ACL that is half the price. So I called around on Tuesday morning trying to find a surgeon that does that type. I finally found one and we made an appt to see them on Wed morning.

We were planning on letting the vet see if he was a good candidate for the surgery and if he was they would perform the surgery later that day. Poor Jake just thought he was going for a car ride. Little did he know what was about to take place.

The vet said Jake was a good candidate. But there were still no guarantees.  So I left him there. He had the surgery that afternoon and spent the night there. The next morning C helped me test out his crate.

This is the face she made when I told her that Jake would have to be confined to the crate for the next 4 weeks. He is only allowed out to potty. 

Jake was suppose to come home in the morning but was in a lot of pain. So they kept him until that evening. C and I spent the afternoon making him welcome home signs.

A sweet picture of Jake with a mountain and cactus.

My favorite sign she made him. "we missed you!"

I put up 2 pictures for Jake to see when he was crated in the bathroom.

It took the vet office forever to check us out and C was very impatient. She desperately wanted to see Jake. They had just put Jake in the car and I heard crying. I looked back and saw this. I asked her why she was crying.  I told her Jake was going to be okay. What she told me almost made me cry. She said " Mommy I am just so happy that Jake is coming home.  These are happy tears."

We got him settled in his crate and he just cried and cried.  It was so hard to ignore it. The vet said he was still in a lot of pain.  Poor guy spent the next 6 hours panting and crying. Jeremy was out of town and I thought I might go insane!  I decided to sleep on the couch for the first night.  And ended up doing that for the 1st week. 

Finally around 3 AM, after 6 straight hours of constant crying and almost hyperventilating, I moved Jake to the bathroom.  I sang him a few lullabies and he went right to sleep.

C was very worried about Jake and so we blew up the air bed and let her sleep on the floor in the playroom--which is right next to the bathroom.

After 3 days at home Jake went back to the vet and got his cast and pain patch removed.  We never put him back in the crate. We have just kept him in the bathroom. I was blessed and found 3 friends that had baby gates. So we just used them to keep him contained.

You might want to look away!  My poor baby with the staples in his knee.

Jake has been wonderful about letting me do his therapy. Here he is a napping while icing his leg. This week we switched to using the heating pad.  Thankfully he just lays there while I put it on him.

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks since his surgery. We head back to the vet to get his staples out.  This morning I went upstairs to get C's brush and when I came back down I saw this. C told me she gave him lots of kisses to help him get better faster. I swear she is the sweetest girl.  

The hardest part of the 2 weeks has been keeping Jake caged up. He is only allowed out of the bathroom to use the potty. And we still have 2 weeks left of confinement.  I am eager for these next few weeks to pass quickly and see Jake heal.