We arrived at Animal Hospital #2 and waited 45 minutes to see Dr. F. I assumed this was a no brainer surgery case since Dr. C seemed to think so. I expected Dr. F to agree and we would proceed from there.
Dr. F agreed that there was something on the x-ray, but he did not think it was that cut and dry. He took another x-ray from a different angle. He did not see anything on that x-ray so he declared that the bone chip we were seeing was actually some arthritis and that she likely was suffering from a really bad bone bruise. Ice, Deramaxx, and a couple of weeks off and she would be just fine. He did not think there was enough pain or swelling to be a fracture.
Area of swelling.
I was thrilled and feeling very lucky. We had dodged a bullet. Dr. C called to find out what Dr. F had said and was not convinced. He was not satisfied with that diagnosis and called Dr. F to asked him to look at the x-rays again. Dr. F said he would call back if he changed his mind.
In the meanwhile, I have a greyhound friend in California who happens to be a veterinary internal medicine specialist (Dr. H) and she asked me to email the x-rays to her so she could consult with the orthopedic specialist in her practice (Dr. B). That was easy to do because I had stopped by my house on the way to see Dr. F so I could copy the x-ray disk that Dr. C had given me.... I knew the bloggers would want to see them.
Dr. B was definitely suspicious that the area of concern was a fracture and felt that she was far too lame and non-weight bearing (as I had described) to just be a bone bruise. I relayed the message to Dr. C who called my friend, Dr. H, to discuss Dr. B's findings.............are you confused yet?
And then my friend, Dr. A, chimed in and asked to see the x-rays too. After receiving the email, she too thought we were probably dealing with a fracture.
At this point, we had 4 out of 5 vets believing we had a fracture. I asked Dr. C to refer me to another orthopedic specialist for a 2nd opinion.
