Zane is having a great day. He woke up about 1:30am for some pain pills and breakfast. He then slept the rest of the way through the night. He has had several potty trips outside and is walking better all the time. On his second trip outside he decided to lay out in the grass for a while. I pulled up a chair and enjoyed some quite time in the sun surrounded by the pack.
Zane has even figured out how to roll onto his back again. This is his favorite sleeping pose. I can tell that he is really comfortable when he is on his back and his "happy" tail is wagging away.
I am hoping that I can get some food in him this evening. He won't be able to eat tomorrow morning since he has surgery in the afternoon. He hasn't eaten all day but I think it is in protest. He hates the taste of the Tramadol pills and I think he thinks I am sneaking them into everything he eats now! If he would just swallow his food whole like Zoe and Daizee he wouldn't have to worry about biting into those bitter pills! Not Zane, though, he has to chew everything thoroughly...so he can spit out those nasty little pills.
Tomorrow's surgery is called a lateral laminectomy/decompression. This will involve shaving out the inside of C6-7. It will open up the spinal canal in that area to allow more room for the spinal cord to move without impingement. This surgery could take a little more immediate recovery time for Zane. He may not walk right away if there is a lot of swelling following the surgery. He will still have 2 months of total bed rest ahead of him.
2 comments:
Hi, Im reading through (from the beginning) on your journey with Wobblers (and knee surgery).
I have a dane (15mos) and we've been having problems with her we can't figure out.
We went on a vacation and left her with her doggy parents and when we got her back her back end was really wobbly. We took her to the vet where they palpated her spine and she was sensitive in the lower back (T11-12) and did get xrays but they couldn't see anything. So we were referred to a neurologist who thought an MRI would be good, so we got that done and a spinal tap. He said he didn't see wobblers (her neck is fine) but the spinal tap showed some inflammation so she was treated (drugged) for meningitis. We have finished that round of drugs, but still noticed some rear end lameness/weakness (her back legs would slip out from under her while standing, or if she ran her back end would be wobbly) so we just took her in yesterday to get her hips xrayed to see if it could be her hips or knees. We're waiting for those results.
Anyway, that's the back story... I wish we knew what was going on with her.
BUT I wanted to say, youre lucky Zane actually chews his food. Darwin is an inhaler (which is good for med taking) which sometimes results in barfing up whole meals of solid kibble pieces. OI.
Have you tried peanut butter or string cheese to slip his pills into?
Sorry for the extremely long comment. :)
You may want to consider getting a second opinion from another neurologist. Just like with human doctors, sometimes we need to look further. Since you already had the mri, you could always have that sent out to be reviewed by another neuro. Meningitis is meningitis- you either have it or you don't. A spinal tap would have ruled that conclusively. I was once in an ER and a young dr suspected 99% sure that I had meningitis- I was pretty sure I had salmonella again. I told him to go ahead with the tap and sure enough it came back negative. Glad I was persistent.
Try using a silicon muffin pan to feed Darwin. I use one with my lab and it slows her down a bit. She can't grab whole mouthfuls- but she sure does try! Using silicone keeps her from gnashing and wearing down her teeth on the metal.
Keep in touch and feel free to join my yahoo group Neurodogs :-)
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