Sadie Undergoes Stem Cell Treatment

It's been almost two weeks now since Sadie underwent her stem cell surgery. They completely put her out to be able to harvest her good cells and clean them then reinject them into her body. She had this done in one day at a vet in the city. I dropped her off in the morning and picked her up in the evening. This is about the third time she's been under anesthesia so I've seen her in this state before but this time she was a little more doped up and couldn't even walk. It took 3 vet techs to put her in the back of my car. When I got her home, Tom and I slid a blanket underneath her to carry her up the stairs and into our house. Keep in mind she weighs 105 lbs. She's not small. Coming out of the anesthesia was a little rough for her as she cried some that night. I slept downstairs with her as we couldn't bring her up another flight of stairs and it would be easier to get her outside if she had to go to the bathroom. Day 2 she started to slowly come out of it and then we saw a miracle happen. Just kidding. There was no miracle. But she started leaking blood and fluid from her stitches a few days later so I had to bring her back in so they could treat her to prevent any type of infection. That lasted a few days and I think we're over the hump now. Stitches come out this weekend. 

As for the surgery, we found out a few things. One she does not have arthritis which is good news (she had an xray of her hips prior to surgery and they said her hips looked great). She was misdiagnosed at the ER vet we went to in the city 1.5 years ago. But she has been suffering from knee tears for 1.5 years. So the stem cell is going toward treating her knee tears and then we banked some stell cells for future treatments if needed including for her Wobblers if we want to use it for that later. About two weeks post surgery, her knees are healing. You can tell she's actually putting weight on them now where before she would definitely toe tap and not want to put them down especially after sitting for a long while. Now she gets off the couch herself and bounds over to her food bowl. I'd say the improvement is about a 2 or 3 on a 10-point scale. She will need another injection in one month and we've been told that 90 percent of patients treated with stem cell do before they see any really good signs of improvement. She's doing well though and on her way to being a healthier dog in 2021.

She looks very comfy

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