 |
|||
| Similar Pages | |||
|
Bailey's Progress
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
October 29, 2001
Bailey had his first appointment at the NC State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Raleigh, NC. The news was alot worse than we were expecting. Along with Bailey's severe case of Hip Dysplasia, Bailey's doctor, Dr. Denis Marcellin, also found that he has a pretty bad case of Elbow Dysplasia to go along with it. Thankfully, Dr. Marcellin is in the process of studying Labradors and knew alot about both diseases. On October 30th, Bailey had surgery to correct his elbows and we got to bring him back home on Halloween. Other than a little soreness, a bad haircut and the awful "lamp-shade" he had to wear for a couple weeks, he is doing great. Considering that he never had a good leg to stand on, his new pair of elbows are going to help out alot. About his hips, we will have to wait and see when the best time will be for his hip replacement, which will probably be in a year or more. At least that gives us time to save up for the $3,000 per hip, which is how much the surgery will cost. In the meantime, we have to put Bailey on a diet to keep him skinny so the least amount of stress will be put on his bad hips until he gets his new ones.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Here is a picture of Bailey the day he got to go home after surgery with his brand new best friend and hero, Dr. Marcellin.
You can read about Dr. Marcellin and his many credits and research topics at:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
December 8, 2001
Bailey made an appearance in the Lenoir Christmas parade. He was so excited to see so many people, especially the kids. He gave plenty of hand-shakes and kisses out that day. Even though it was a long, tiring walk, he did great.
His elbows are healing very well and helping him get around much better. His hips are still giving him quite a bit of trouble though. But we'll just have to hold out until he's old enough for that hip replacement surgery. At least his hair has grown back most of the way and he got to go back outside to exercise and play after his stitches came out a few weeks ago.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The little reindeer man resting before the long walk.
|
Bailey loved all the attention he was getting!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
February 4, 2002
Bailey had his 3-month follow up appointment at NCSU to check on his elbows. The doctors were very pleased with his progress and said they could see improvement. However, they are still pretty worried that he may break a bone in one of his arms since the bones are weak, so we just have to make sure he's not too rough. If one were to break, they will put pins in both elbows to stabilize them. His hips seem to be doing better since his elbows are stronger and able to carry their part of the load now, so that made us feel much better. The hip replacement is still in Bailey's future, but for now, the elbows are the biggest priority. We go back to NCSU in 6 months to recheck his elbows and keep an eye on his hips.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
August 21, 2002
Bailey had another appointment with his friend, Dr. Denis Marcellin at NCSU. We were worried about his elbows because he had been limping on them and licking them a lot, so just to be safe, we got Dr. Marcellin to check them out. Thankfully, the x-rays didn't show any breaks or anything much worse than what we already knew about. Like the doctor said, "they don't look good, but we already knew that." At least they weren't much worse than they were the last time he saw Bailey in February. Dr. Marcellin told us about a new elbow replacement surgery that is being developed that may be able to help Bailey in the future, when it becomes available. Bailey would be a good candidate for this, since his elbows are pretty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||