Pip’s Story

 Here are some pictures along with Pip’s story– I’m going to let him narrate it in his own words 🙂  

Hi, my name is Pip! I’m 3 years old, and I’ve always been a high-energy, fun-loving guy. A while back my mom noticed I was having some trouble with my back leg, and the vet diagnosed me with a luxating patella. Basically that means my kneecap kept slipping out of its grooves. It started as a low grade, but unfortunately, it got a lot worse. I couldn’t run around and play like I used to, because my leg kept giving out on me, and I started to get pretty depressed. I’m a young guy and I was having a really hard time just getting around.

Feeling a little depressed when my leg started to bother me and I couldn’t play like I used to.

My mom took me back to the vet and they told her it had progressed and referred us to an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon examined me and said that it had reached the point where I would need surgery to fix it. If I didn’t have the surgery, I would most likely suffer permanent damage to my leg. While I wasn’t happy to be facing surgery, I was glad that they could fix it, and that I’d be able to run around and play again without my leg giving out on me.
As you can imagine, surgery and all the appointments got pretty expensive. My mom and dad were really glad that they had gotten pet insurance for me because that helped a lot with the costs. Surgery is stressful, and they were really worried about me, but they were grateful that they didn’t have to stress about the financial aspect of it.

After my surgery, I had to wear an E collar, which was no fun.

After my surgery I had a pretty long recovery ahead of me; for 6 weeks I wasn’t supposed to move around much at all, and for the first couple of weeks I had to wear an E collar . Boy was I glad when that thing came off. You can see they had to shave my leg and I have a big scar from the surgery. I had to stay in my recovery playpen for 6 weeks to make sure I wasn’t moving too much or jumping on anything while my leg healed.

My leg was shaved for surgery. Not my best look.

Then 6 weeks in solitary confinement (I mean, my “recovery playpen”) to rest and heal.

Me with some catnip and toys…back to the good life!

I saw the surgeon last week for my final post-op visit and he said everything looks great! I got to bust out of my recovery playpen and I can start to move around and play more. He said it’ll be a few months until I reach complete recovery, but I’m feeling so much better already. I can run and play again and I’m so much happier. Here I am enjoying my toys and some catnip that my mom gave me. She says my eyes look bright and happy again now that I feel better.

With gratitude from Pip, and his mom and dad

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