Surgery Is Scheduled...

Well, after much deliberation, consultations, and prayers, we've finally scheduled Duke's surgery.  This has definitely been a hard choice, but we've decided to go with the nylon suture to fix Duke's knee.  We had called around to some vets along with some colleges and got a huge range in prices, from 2500 with consults and x-rays not included, 2900 with x-rays and consults, to 3000 and above.  Rob even got an estimate for an nylon suture with another vet who quoted 2500 dollars!  This is interesting because our original vet quoted 800.  Rob talked to the vet who gave us Duke's diagnosis this morning.  He did a run down of the surgery procedure.  They'll shave his leg, make a 6-7 inch incision on the inside of his leg.  They check his knee to make sure there is no meniscus damage, and everything looks ok other than the torn cruciate.  They then remove the cruciate and replace it with nylon.  After that they stabalize the knee with nylon making figure 8's.  The vet said on larger dogs he does this twice, and they also drill a hole through the bone so that they can loop the nylon through.  They also tighten up the muscles around his knee.  He says when Duke leaves his new "cruciate" will be as good as it will ever be, and the only risks are of the nylon breaking or loosening.  Though if it does get looser it will just be a little more unstable, but it'll still be ok.  Duke does have some arthritis in his knee, so we'll probably be looking into some type of joint supplement, and will probably give some to Dutchess as well.  The recovery period is shorter I believe, but we don't know for sure yet.  The surgery is set for next Monday, Duke has to be there bright and early at 9 AM to get doped up and shaved.  It feels good to know what we're doing, but it feels weird thinking it's less than a week away!  I'll be busy the rest of this week making sure the house is deep cleaned, and laundry is done, and meals are planned, because I don't know how much time I'll have to spend watching Duke and keeping him out of trouble!