Moving right along

I am very happy to report that Heidi has been doing much much better yesterday and today. She is standing up and moving around more easily and she wags her tail the whole time she's doing it. I'd love to say she's walking around, but a better description would be that she's moving very wobbly on all four legs. She looks like she's had way too many Margaritas for her size. I actually stopped giving her the tramodol for pain yesterday afternoon and she's been fine and moving around well ever since. As I write this, she's down here in the basement with me motoring around on the carpet. She can walk pretty far now (maybe 10 feet) without falling down! I think she's happy to be out of her crate and have a little freedom. And I'm very very proud of her for doing so well. We will go back to the doctor tomorrow and probably get the staples taken out.

She's more comfortable and getting stronger

Well, yesterday and today Heidi seems to be resting more comfortably and is getting a little stronger. During the night on Friday night she was able to get up and reposition herself at least two times. Since her crate is on a table right next to the bed I could hear her every time she stirred so I knew she was doing something. When I woke up in the morning, she was in a comfortable "lounging" position, like the Queen of Sheba, on her side with her legs out in front of her and her facial expression was much softer and brighter. All during the day on friday she seemed bright and alert and was definitely not feeling as much pain as she had the day before. It also seems like her back legs are getting a little stronger. She was able to stand up all on her own even though her legs are crooked and crossed she could at least pull herself up from a sitting position and stand one them. She can't put her feet in the right place yet, and her toes still curl over when she's standing on them, but she's definitely putting her weight on both legs. And I was very impressed by how well she was able to pull herself to a standing position. Its probably easier to do now that some of the pain has subsided. She can only stand for a few seconds though, then she wobbles over one direction or the other. Its hard to stand when your legs are so tiny and they are crossed all the time! But I do think she's making a little bit of progress and that's quite a relief.

A difficult day

Today was a very difficult day for both of us. Its hard on me to see Heidi in this condition and hard on her of course because she's not very comfortable. She gets tramadol for pain every 8 hours but they only seem to last for about 4 hours. She spends the rest of the time looking like she's uncomfortable. And there was no change in her strength. She still can't move her back legs. It almost seemed like her left leg wasn't as strong today as it was yesterday, and her right leg was a little stronger than yesterday, but I could just be imagining it. Tomorrow I'll ask the Dr. if I can give her the tramadol more often and see if that helps any. By the looks of things, this is going to be a very slow process with not much new to report each day. At this point, I'm just trying to keep her comfortable and waiting patiently for her to be able to move her legs.

Heidi came home today!!!

Heidi was able to come home from the hospital today. She looked MUCH better today than she did on Monday. They said they had been having trouble getting the pain meds into her (she's very smart and knows how to eat around a pill!) but today they are sure they got it in her and it really shows. Her expression was much brighter and I was thrilled to see her feeling better. She continues to be able to support her weight somewhat on her left side but not on the right side. She did give us a little waggle of her tail when she saw me. So that's good. They want me to try to get her to support her weight several times a day. There's no way to tell how long it will be before she can use that right leg. But the Dr. doesn't seem too worried because the disk material had been embedded in the right side of the cord and so he expects it will take longer for the right side to heal. After we got home, I got her settled in her little home-made portable hospital bed and then I gave her some food and her medicine at 5:00pm. She seemed to enjoy the food part but not the medicine part.

Later on in the evening, I carried her downstairs to the family room in her little portable bed and sat her on the couch next to me while I worked on the computer and watched TV. I spent a little time playing with her back feet to see how much she could feel and she was able to feel me tickling between her toes and she was able to curl her toes on both feet and push against the pressure of my hands. I think that is a very good sign. After that she slept for a while. And then later on she seemed restless and really struggled to sit up and try to go somewhere. So I tried to help her by pushing her back feet up underneath her butt and holding them steady for her. Then, she stood up! It was incredible! I was so excited! Then she continued to try to do something. It took me a few seconds to figure it out, but she was trying to climb out of her bed and into my lap! Poor baby desperately wanted to be in Mommy's lap :) So of course I helped her, and then she slept on my chest with her little head tucked under my chin for about an hour. When she woke up, I'm not exactly sure what happened, but she moved and then started yelping. I don't know what was hurting her but obviously she was in a position that wasn't comfortable so I quickly moved her off of me and back into her little bed and she stopped yelping Thank Goodness! I just hate when that happens. I feel so helpless when she's crying. But she seemed fine afterwards and I took her back to her bed upstairs so she can go night night. And I'm sure she's sound asleep by now.

Not the first time

Unfortunately, this is not the first time my little Heidi has had to undergo major surgery. Back in December of 2002, when she was only 2 years old, she had to have both of her knees operated on. It was quite an ordeal. If you want to read more about it click here.

What Happened?

I guess everyone is wondering how Heidi ended up in the hospital having spinal decompression surgery. Well, around the same time my Dad passed away in November 2006, Heidi had severe pain in her back and was diagnosed with meningitis. In the process of trying to figure out what was causing her so much pain, we had an MRI performed. In fact, the last time I talked to my Dad was on my cell phone when I was on my way home from having the MRI done. My Dad passed away the next morning. The MRI showed that Heidi has one herniated disk in her neck, and one in her back. However, the herniation was not severe and was not thought to be the actual source of her pain. So, the neurologist wanted to do one more test, a spinal tap, and see if she had meningitis. Sure enough, that's what she had. So, we treated her for the meningitis and everything was fine. But, they told me even though the herniated disks were not causing her any significant pain right now, they could flare up at any time and could result in needing surgery later on. She did have a couple of minor episodes of back pain since then, but usually after a day of resting she would be fine. So there was nothing indicating that she would go down as severely as she did this past Friday.

When I got home on Friday night, May 16th, I found Heidi upstairs in my bedroom in a sitting position and unable to stand or move her legs. It was awful. The poor little girl was trying so hard to greet me but she couldn't. I immediately called the emergency vet and told them I was bringing Heidi in and to please call her neurologist Dr Gainsburg to let him know we were coming.

We arrived at the emergency vet in Catonsville about 7:00pm. They took Heidi back to examine her right away and then called Dr. Gainsburg to let him know how she was doing. I had a chance to talk to Dr. Gainsburg as well and he told me that Heidi definitely needed surgery as soon as possible in order to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord. Of course I agreed to the surgery and so Dr. Gainsburg left home to come back to the office.

The next step was to do a mylogram to find out exactly where the cord was being compressed. A mylogram is a test where they inject dye into the spinal cord and then take xrays. An area that is being compressed shows up as an indentation and it was quite obvious where Heidi's problem was. I could see it on the xray even before the Dr. pointed it out.

By this time it was about 11:00pm. The next step was to prep Heidi for surgery and do the surgery. So I went home and waited for the Dr. to call me after the surgery was over. The surgery started at midnight and Dr. Gainsburg called me when it was completed at 2:30 am. He said the surgery went well but it was more difficult than he expected. Apparently, because the disk disease had been chronic, portions of the disk had embedded in the spinal cord and were difficult to remove. He said that because of this the surgery itself may have caused additional trauma and it may take her a little bit longer to heal especially on her right side. But, he thinks her chances of healing and regaining normal function in her hind legs is pretty good. He didn't say how long Heidi would have to stay in the hospital, he would have a better idea after he sees her again on Monday.

On Saturday and Sunday I called to see how she was doing and they said she was resting comfortably but couldn't tell me much more than that. On Monday I went to see her and she looked pretty out of it. I don't think she was in much pain because she was pretty drowsy from the pain medication. But it was hard to see her that way. She has a 6 inch incision in her back and its held together with huge staples instead of stitches. They said she's in less pain now than she was before the surgery. I certainly hope that is true, but of course she can't tell me if it is.

Today (Tuesday) I called to see how she was doing and they said she was doing well. She is able to stand with assistance and put weight on her left leg but not on her right leg yet. They want to make sure she can pee on her own before they let her come home. She peed once and everyone was happy. But the next time she held it in, I think she didn't want to pee in her bed, and they had to express her bladder manually. So, we'll see how she does tomorrow and wait for them to tell me when I can take her home.