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.