The Consultation

"I, Freddie Spaghetti have been violated."

Our consultation went well, sort of. There was good news and bad news. After going over Fred thoroughly  and looking at his x-rays the surgeon  figured Fred is doing pretty well in the state he's in right now.  He can still walk and run without acting like he's in pain most of the time and he still has good muscle tone. So they recommended to carry on with medication and physical therapy until he reaches a plateau or hastily declines. He also suggested Fred lose some weight and we add fish oil to his diet.  Since they can't tell how fast his hips are actually deteriorating, he recommended a follow up in a few months to do a comparison x-ray.  This should help determine what rate it's progressing at.  He could have months before something needs to be done or (fingers crossed) he said he could have a few years.  He said it's a little harder to say with bassets as their legs are screwy anyway. 

Next problem.  Fred apparently has small bones and he doesn't know if Fred would even be a candidate for hip replacement later.  When the time comes they would take radio-graphs to see if his bones are big enough to hold the hip replacement. He felt we need not put him through the radio-graphs now and we agreed. If in fact his bones are not big enough to take a hip replacement, he said he would be a candidate for FHO surgery even though he did weigh in there at 67lbs.   He said Fred could have his play time.  Running in our contained yard for a bit was fine.  He was not to keen on him and Gloria wrestling and definitely no stairs.  So, no more going downstairs to the rec room watching dogs with jobs on the big screen from his my Detroit Lions chair. For right now we have a reprieve. We felt a sense of relief just knowing a little better where we stand so we are just going to take it one day at a time and try to go on normally.  That is the "sort of" good news.  

The bad news.  Apparently both his back legs have bad knees.  His worst one is the right knee which is the same leg that's hip is worse (the one that clunks).  Again, bassets have screwy legs anyway so it's hard to tell if a lot of it is just his legs or if it's the disease in the knee.  They are not that severe now, one is a grade one out of four and the other is a grade two out of four, so we are not going to think about that right now.  

So there you have it in a nutshell. Freddie is allowed to play (supervised) and when he's in pain I will give him medication and we will see how far this will take us for now.  I again want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all your positive thoughts prayers and well wishes for Freddie.  It really means a lot to us!  For right now, as far as we know there will be no surgery in the spring so I see no need for a chip-in at this time. It still overwhelms me to know that everyone was right there for us ready to help out.  People really are good!  Our house will keep the Freddie Fund going for on going meds and appointments and hopefully we have lots of time to build up a substantial fund for when the time comes that Freddie needs surgery and I know help is there if we need it.  That's enough for me!

I apologize for the long post but here are some pictures of our day.

We had to rig up something quick for Fred as his seat belt wouldn't fit when we went to leave.

He got to look out the window before we left town.

This is the Small Animal Clinic at Guelph University.  They also have a Large Animal Clinic and a Cancer Clinic.

Freddie was not impressed with having a thermometer shoved up his butt.  He was totally humiliated!

They had lots of treats there but he just didn't care.

I made these ones Wednesday afternoon to take with us for his reward.  I got the recipe from Wag The Dog.

Freddie checking out the pee mail after we left and believe me he left some hate mail himself!

He was ticked at me the whole way home.

Ahhhh!  Home sweet home after a very long day!