Monday 10 March 2014

Poor little Nikki...



...has gone to the vet's this morning for an operation on her front right leg :-(  It has always been a little puffy around the wrist (?) joint and we have been told that it is probably because of damage done before she was rescued, when she was so badly treated.  It has never appeared to be painful, though, and she has always walked normally on it. 

However, last November it became much more swollen and started to weep.  She was put on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories as it was thought that she had got an infection in it somehow.  And since then, it has never really cleared up properly.  In fact, at one stage it got really bad; her whole foot swelled up and an old scar she already had split open.  Our vet took some swabs a couple of months ago but it all came back as sterile.  Since then, it did appear to be clearing up but on Friday evening we noticed that once again the joint and her foot was swelling up.  I took her to the vet on Saturday and it was decided that it was time to actually open up the area and see if there was anything in there that was causing the problems.  Rory (our lovely vet) said that there could well be necrotic tissue leftover from whatever had occurred originally, which would need to be cleared out.

Just as worrying is that Nikki has lost about 2kg over the past couple of months or so, which for a dog who is already very slender is a lot of weight to lose.  She has been eating normally as well, so I am very concerned about what has caused the weightloss.  So she will also be having blood tests done today to see if anything shows up to explain it.

I'll let you know how things go in due course...

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