ANYWAY. On Wednesday, while I was cleaning, Callie spent the majority of the day on the couch. Which isn't unheard of from her, she is lazy. But usually she follows me around and lays in whatever room I'm in. Not on Wednesday. She didn't move from the sofa all day. I finally made her go outside to the bathroom around lunch time and noticed she didn't really want to come back up the stairs... I thought she was just being lazy. Before we got on the road to Augusta we had to drop a couple things off at our friends house so we let Callie out to tee tee and she was REALLY favoring her right leg but she could still put weight on it and could still run so I thought maybe she just twisted it or something. On the way we stopped at a gas station and I let her out again and she couldn't bear weight on her leg so I started to panic. If you know me you know that I have a crazy obsession with this dog. She is the best dog and loves me more than anyone else. BUT it was the day before thanksgiving at 8 o'clock at night. So we kept on trucking to Augusta and thought maybe she broke her foot and we would find a vet on Friday because no one would be open on Thanksgiving. BUT as soon as we got to Augusta we let her out and she couldn't move either of her back legs. She was dragging them on the ground. I lost it. Here my favorite animal in the whole world couldn't even walk. I know all about miniature dachshunds and their back issues so I knew it had to be something with that. I told Jonathan to look up a 24 hour vet (praying it wouldn't be an hour away- but regardless we would have driven that far). I knew something bad was going on and it wasn't something we could just wait until after Thanksgiving over. He found one and thankfully it was only 10 minutes away. So we got Hazel to sleep and then went to the vet. I was a crying mess. I just knew she had broken her back and we were going to have to put her down.
So they evaluated her and came in to tell us the news. She either had a ruptured disk or it was swollen causing temporary paralysis. I lost it again. I knew what that meant. She would have to have surgery. This surgery was going to be outrageously expensive and we wouldn't be able to afford it and rather than her suffer we were going to have to put her down. I would lose my best friend. The day before Thanksgiving... when just 24 hours earlier she was perfectly healthy and running and playing. So I was bawling like a baby and Jonathan went to talk to the vet to see what our options were. Since surgery was out of the question, we had to try the only thing we could and that is steroid treatment. The vet said that since she deteriorated so quickly that we would know very quickly if the steroids would work or if we would have to put her down. So we prayed and prayed and prayed. I cried a lot and none of us got much sleep that night. I just couldn't stop crying. It felt as though I was losing my child and there was nothing I could do. It was a terrible feeling. So the next day was Thanksgiving. I hadn't slept much and now I had a cripple dog that needed pretty much constant care because she kept wanting to walk around. So while we were eating we put her in a crate, gave her all her medicine and thankfully she didn't make any noise. Usually when we put her in her crate she is constantly crying and whining. Thanksgiving went well... I tried not to focus on it and tried to enjoy family and being thankful but I was on the verge of tears the entire time. All that day and night she hadn't gone to the bathroom since we left the house so it was over 24 hours of her not going so I started to worry so we went back to the vet and she taught us how to "express her bladder"... basically you just put pressure on her bladder until she goes. The vet we went to was SO nice. She dealt with my crying like a baby and was just so patient with us. She didn't charge us for the second visit and she said if we needed to come back she wouldn't charge us again. So we've been doing that since Wednesday. The vet said to keep checking her "deep pain" which is basically just squeezing in between her back toes and if she flinches away then she still has that feeling in the legs and that is a good thing. So we've also been testing that since Wednesday and she still has it now. She can still wag her tail and pull her legs away from pain. Today I took her outside to express her bladder and as soon as I lifted her legs she started going on her own!! This is a huge step and something I thought we would have to wait a couple months for her to do. We've been talking about her quality of life and when we would have to put her down and that was one thing we both decided that we wouldn't do the rest of her life; make her go to the bathroom. If she couldn't do that on her own then we would put her down. We could deal with a cripple dog but not one that couldn't use the bathroom by itself. So that is a huge step for her! So now its basically a waiting game. We are still giving her the steroids and pain medicine and she is perfectly content to sit on the sofa or in her crate if I have to go somewhere. Please keep the prayers coming for her and pray that she regains her back leg strength so that she can walk again! We will go to the vet here sometime this week.
On to the next issue: we got a call on Friday (we were still in Augusta) from our HOA saying that the emergency leak valve from our hot water heater was "gushing" water. So we got someone to turn the water off and called our friend to go over there and check it out. He said that there was a little puddle bur it wasn't gushing. Our neighbor is batshitcrazy (and a total control freak... she watches for when we put our trash out). So anyway right now there is a guy tinkering around down there and trying to figure out the problem with the hot water heater. I am praying we don't have to replace the whole thing!
But other than those 2 things our Thanksgiving was great. It is always so awesome seeing my in-laws and letting them hang out with Hazel. I think that family is very important and I love how much Hazel loves them!
And I didn't realize till after the fact that we didn't take a single picture on Thanksgiving. I'm the mother of the year.... send me my plaque.
Oh my gosh, your poor puppy (and you!) I know what it's like to be in those situations, my dogs mean everything to me! In fact my little Yorker has had episodes with his back legs like that before. It's scary!! Hoping he is doing much better!!
ReplyDeleteWhat happened with his back legs? Did he stop using them? Her's is a back issue (either a swollen or ruptured disk) but she is showing some definite signs of improvement! We're going to the vet this week so hopefully she'll give us positive news. I'll post about it whenever we do :)
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