Zeus’s Knee Repair

About 5 years ago, Jon and I rescued the sweetest little, slightly damaged Doberman named Zeus. We adopted him knowing full well that his birth defects would eventually cause him to need surgery for mobility purposes. Knowing this, we began immediately setting aside money and were fully prepared for his first surgery last month. But what we were not prepared for was 3 back to back surgeries and complications. So here we are…asking for a little help. It’s been a challenging few months and we anticipate things are going to get harder before they get easier.

In September, Zeus went in for surgery to remove the cyst from his eye. During that surgery, he had x-rays taken of his leg as he had stopped fully using it. We were referred to a specialist, and surgery was performed on his knee. The surgery was not a guarantee, and given that Zeus has a front leg malformation, he was a bit of a higher risk because he doesn’t have three good back up legs to walk on.

Unfortunately, at our two week check up, the doctor discovered that the repair was failing. Zeus had broken his knee where the screws were placed and the plate in his knee was beginning to shift. We decided to try adding a splint /cast to see if we could prevent further shifting. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had to nurse a 75 pound lame Doberman back to health, but it is quite taxing. Both for us and for Zeus. But we powered through and are doing our best.

More unfortunate news hit us this past week when Zeus developed sores on his foot and at the site where the plate was shifting. The splint was not successful and the plate actually shifted to the point where it broke through his skin. He spent the past week in the hospital - where he received around the clock care, daily splint changes and a series of intense antibiotics. He has been returned to us for the weekend and has another surgery scheduled for Monday.

The doctor is hopeful that a reparative surgery to replace the hardware, reset the bone, and add a splint will be successful. If not, we’re looking at a fourth surgery, which would be a full hind leg amputation.

We are desperately hoping that it does not get to that, as Zeus doesn’t really have enough functioning limbs to successfully get around if they amputate one leg. We are doing the best we can given the situation.

But we’re tired, worried and stressed. After the eye surgery, first knee repair, multiple splints for the injured leg, medications, x-rays, overnight care and second knee surgery (not including the gas to get back and forth to the surgeon office- which is 40 minutes each way, and we’ve driven it now 14 times, the ramp we needed to purchase because Zeus can’t use stairs, or the other medical equipment we’ve needed to help with this)- our bills are reaching $20,000. It’s way more than we had saved and the weight of it is heavy.

So…if you know me at all you realize that asking for help is super hard. But because this is for the absolute bestest boy, I’m going to swallow my pride.

We sure could use some love, prayers, healing vibes. If you have any money to throw our way- we would be immensely grateful. If you can share this link and spread the word- that would be amazing too. We want to be sure that money isn’t the thing that prevents us from helping. We want to do everything we can to help this little soul heal. He really is just the bestest boy ♥️

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’ll be sharing updates on his progress here and on Facebook. We love and appreciate your help.