Thanks for putting that on Jo, we just got home at 7 o'clock, it's been a really long day as Ro and I had to wait around in Glasgow while they kept Tilly in. Poor Tills is not very happy, she had another GA and this one has hit her harder, she's really woozy and for the first time ever she had an accident and peed herself in the back of the car on the way home, god love her she was quite distressed even though obviously I wasn't angry at all, I just felt so sorry for her. She's a bit better now that she's home and we've cleaned her up and she's had some chicken
Anyway, as Jo said, they did more x-rays, took some synovial fluid out of her shoulder joint and did a cintography scan. They are pretty sure she has something called IOHC which is incomplete ossification of the humeral condyle (I had to write that down!) which basically means her shoulder joint isn't fused properly and there's a weakness there; Spaniels are apparently very predisposed to it. She has some sign of degenerative changes in the joint which ties in with the IOHC diagnosis; they said it's probably only because she's so muscular across her chest and shoulders that she's never actually fractured the humerus as humeral fractures are extremely common in dogs with IOHC although the possibility of this happening may increase with age
The long term prognosis isn't really clear yet. She has to be rested completely for another 6 weeks
which I don't know how I'm going to do as she doesn't take it very well at all and then I have to slowly reintroduce exercise over a period of 2 weeks and then she has to go back to see them again. There is a possiblity of surgery on the joint but they don't know if that's the route they're going to recommend yet. The other option if they don't think surgery will work or help in her case it just to manage it which means that she'll be on daily painkillers for the rest of her life as she's going to be in pain and it's just something we'll have to live with. Obviously this isn't particularly good news and will probably mean that her working will have to be severely reined back if not stopped altogether which for her is almost unthinkable. She's ok for now though, she's dosed up on metacam and is sleeping it off on the sofa but the next 6 weeks are going to be interesting to say the least.
