On the 13th Sept Tai managed to pull the ends of an internal suture that was sticking out the external incision. This caused the internal incision to rupture and infection to set in. He was a very quiet and miserable dog over the weekend!! We x-rayed him then to check the hardware and it all looked ok. So he went on antibiotics which helped the swelling go down (it had blown up at least twice in size over Sat night!!). He didn't weightbear at all last week after making great progress with his physio up till then.
On Thursday the decision was made to remove the plate and put an external fixator on. This sugery happened on Sunday. The surgery went well but upon opening up Steve saw that a screwhead had cracked - this is where something happens to the screwhead, in Tai's case it had bent, causing the surrounding bone to fracture. I'm not sure what Tai did to cause that one! He now has four pins in his radius and the pin still in the ulna. He has bounced back from surgery and is coping well. Not sure how long the external fixator will stay in but initially it was thought only 3 to 4 weeks but now possibly longer.
I've got some baby cot bumpers to put around his crate to stop the fixator getting caught or banging into the wires. It looks very cosy in there.
The pic attached I took not long after I took him home on Sunday following surgery so he looks pretty dopy still. He is back to his happy self now although he is going to be sooo naughty when he is finally allowed to do stuff as I am too scared to do any training or shaping tricks with him until the fixator comes off.
So all this for a freaken broken bone... make sure you doggies don't break anything! It is bloody expensive too.
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