Stella ella recheck take 4 or 5???

I thought I had updated about her last recheck, but I can't find the post.  Basically, when we went last time, everything was good except the dumping of protein in her urine.  It was time for her recheck, in which they wanted me to collect urine for three days, refrigerate it and bring it in.  They would pool it to get an average to see what she dumps over a period of three days.

Unfortunately a few days ago, well maybe a few more than that, Stella became lame.  September 17th to be exact.  We had run 7 miles together, and she was completely fine during and post run.  Many hours later, she was laying on the bed with me, and she proceeded to jump down to get a drink.  She started limping on her front right leg, almost like her shoulder hurt her.  She continued to limp on that leg the remainder of the day and night, but was completely fine the next day.  Reminder, she is still on 10 mg a day of steroids once a day.  Anyway, I just chalked it up to her jumping off of the bed oddly and landing oddly.

Fast forward till September 20th.  We ran 6 miles post Konquer the Konza.  In fact, I took her and Deuce, which is probably not a good thing.  They run, rough house, stop, go, play, bump, and just generally act like NUTS.  They were both covered in mud, but very happy when I got home.  The lameness didn't start immediately, but I noticed over the course of several days, she was favoring a back leg.  She then would go from holding it up and being three legged lame, to running around like no problem.  I took her in with Deuce on friday September 23rd for his yearly check up, to just make sure we weren't missing anything.  We did palpations on every part of the leg, and could not find anything wrong.  We felt like it couldn't be too serious if she wasn't 100% three legged lame.

Fast forward again till last night September 25th.  Again on and off again lame, but sometimes to the point of not using that leg at all.  I started to think about how i was going to get another loan to pay for a TPLO.  The lameness so reminded me of how berry acted when she blew out her CCL.  I tried not to jump to conclusions because again, she wasn't like that all of the time.

September 26th.  KSU recheck.  Went in to pool the samples of her urine, but quickly unloaded all of my thoughts and fears about Stella to my poor student.  What if this is a flare?  What if this is a tear?  What if the steriods are going to make all of the test results null and void?  Can we taper again?  What about Tick borne disease again?  Are we still confident in our diagnosis of IMPA?  Here is what we know so far:

The KSU vets do NOT feel like this is a flare up (YIPEEEE).  However, they do not want to decrease the steriods in this case, until the lameness resolves.

Yes, the steriods could skew the results.  Even with the taper from 20 mgs to 10 mgs once a day, we still may not see the numbers change, or it still could be she just dumps protein naturally because she is a freak of nature.  OR the steriods could be causing the dump.  Still won't know till possibly months after she is off the roids (which doesn't look like it is going to be happening any time soon).

They do NOT think this is still some unresolved tick borne disease.  They did not feel like a new panel would give us any information other than drive up my already huge vet bill.

They are calling her injury an "athletic injury".  They felt she had response in her knee and hock in the back left leg.  She had no fluid so no inflammation in either of those joints.  They felt like she had some sort of subluxation somewhere, and that was why she was good one minute and not so good the next.  If it is a tear that is causing the instability, it is a partial tear and could have some stability in a month or so with inactivity (wish me luck).  The Ortho attending gave her an exam and felt like a month's rest was the best way forward.  No running, no rough play, just leashed walks and lots of rest.

We are going back in a month for an ortho re check and then after the test results today, should know more about the protein in her urine issue.  She did have an accident in the bed last night, which is kind of unusual, but in true stella form, she also got into the beef bullion cubes and consumed who knows how many cubes, and could have just drank a ton of water, thus the accident.  I will keep everyone posted in my normal weekly posts and then in a separate post on her recheck in a month.  I feel like we are moving in the right direction and this is just a temporary detour.