no, angell is in jamaica plain, south of downtown boston. you may be thinking of tufts which is in grafton.
i had a long talk with my vet about tplo yesterday (a little after the fact). he said there have been no definitive long term studies that determine the effectiveness of the surgery over long periods of time because it is so new. he said all the research hospitals are pushing it because they want to get their numbers up so they can publish the studies. however the cost is so restrictive that he said some pet owners are just forgoing all surgeries because the hospitals aren't providing ALL options when diagnosing knee injuries.
so, my advice to all of you faced with knee surgeries is to weigh the costs with the age of the dog. if the dog is older then an older procedure that they claim may not last as long may be good enough. if the dog is young then weigh the potential benefits (which are as of yet unproven with tplo) with what you can reasonably afford. even though we went with tplo now, if the other knee goes in 3 years (when seamus is 8 instead of 5) we may make a very different decision and go with the traditional ligament replacement surgery.
meanwhile, seamus is doing better. he's eating and drinking except when he has the e-collar on which is most of the night and all day when we're at work. he's not real thrilled with us when we get home but he would chew himself silly otherwise. the sock idea didn't work because the staples go all the way up to the meatiest part of his hindquarter and even a cut open sock wouldn't slide up far enough to cover the worst of it. so, we give him some respite from the cone only when we are full chew alert (watching tv, etc.).
thanks for the advice and listening,
susan
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Susan Dobscha, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marketing
Bentley College
175 Forest Street
Waltham, MA 02452
781.891.2042 (work)
781.891.3410 (fax)
EFPico@gateway.net Sent by: owner-pyrnet-l@pyrnet.org
02/20/01 05:54 PM
Please respond to pyrnet-l
To: pyrnet-l@pyrnet.org
cc:
Subject: Re: [pyrnet] seamus' knee surgery
In a message dated 02/17/2001 12:38:15 PM Eastern Standard Time,
SDOBSCHA@LNMTA.bentley.edu writes:
<< luckily we
live five minutes from angell memorial, a specialist hospital. >>
Hi Susan,
Is Angell Memorial the hospital in W.Springfield? I had one of my dogs
knees operated on there and thought the doctors and staff were great!
Elaine
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