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Hello,
I will start out I am new to the forum and my name is Joelyn. I have a 5 1/2 yr old beagle named Tiki and she is my little girl, side kick, trooper, and best friend.
Over the weekend, I realized that she was acting funny or getting sick. She would jump up on the couch and just lay as close as she could to me. She sometimes had a difficult time jumping up, I just figured she is sick so she is weak. in the middle of the night I noticed that she was not walking correctly. She was staggering and wobbly. I laid on the floor with her until she fell asleep and then i just laid in my bed staring at her. When it was time to get up for the day she would not even move. I carried her down stairs and she just kept wobbling around and i told my boyfriend we need to take her to the vet right now. We took her to an emergency vet clinic and they said she had a slipped disc. They sent her home with a steroid and a pain killer. Within 12-24 hours she took a turn for the worse. She was unable to walk, keep her feet in the standing pose, and couldnt control her bladder. I decided to use a PTO day and leave work and take her back to the er vet.
During his observations, he noticed that almost all the feeling was gone in her hind end. she had more feeling in her left leg then her right. His options to me were to just keep trying the meds, surgery, or euthanasia. Well sorry, euthanasia is OUT!!!, and the meds didnt seem to be working.
My boyfriend's friend had offered sunday to let me use his care credit to help pay for tiki's visit, which i refused. When I made the decision to opt for surgery I texted his friend the next morning and told him about tiki getting worse and asked to use it. He said of course, and i started to cry!! My baby girl was going to get surgery and things would be fine!!!
So yesterday (8/21/12) I take her down to the vet and she is left there and she gets the ct scan and they tell me she now has a ruptured disc, and they will be doing surgery in the morning (8/22). She did very well there over night. Her surgery went very well and they removed the disc and everything that was pushing on the spinal cord to relieve pressure. I am so happy that my little girl is out of surgery and doing well. I will be bringing her home in a few days. I am going to go see her tomorrow though after my boyfriend gets out of work!!! I'm so excited to see her face!
I have read some of the people's stories in this forum before I posted mine, as well as on other sites to get people's insights of their dogs with this problem and how things turned out.
When telling my mom about Tiki and the cost of the surgery and the chance that she may NOT still be able to walk, she said "why would you put her threw that!!! You need to just put her to sleep!!" Well apparently my mom doesn't know me that well and doesn't realize that I would die for this dog!! She seems to think that dogs with disabilities can not live happily and if she is stuck in a wheel chair for the remainder of her life she will be unhappy. I will prove to her that Tiki deserves that 2nd chance and I just couldnt do that to her. I would hate myself if i put her to sleep knowing that there is a chance that she was able to get better and be her fun, loving beagle self again.
So, has anyone had a turn out where they had to put their dogs in a wheel chair? How did they react? How long did it take for them to recover fully?! Do you regret anything?!
I will start out I am new to the forum and my name is Joelyn. I have a 5 1/2 yr old beagle named Tiki and she is my little girl, side kick, trooper, and best friend.
Over the weekend, I realized that she was acting funny or getting sick. She would jump up on the couch and just lay as close as she could to me. She sometimes had a difficult time jumping up, I just figured she is sick so she is weak. in the middle of the night I noticed that she was not walking correctly. She was staggering and wobbly. I laid on the floor with her until she fell asleep and then i just laid in my bed staring at her. When it was time to get up for the day she would not even move. I carried her down stairs and she just kept wobbling around and i told my boyfriend we need to take her to the vet right now. We took her to an emergency vet clinic and they said she had a slipped disc. They sent her home with a steroid and a pain killer. Within 12-24 hours she took a turn for the worse. She was unable to walk, keep her feet in the standing pose, and couldnt control her bladder. I decided to use a PTO day and leave work and take her back to the er vet.
During his observations, he noticed that almost all the feeling was gone in her hind end. she had more feeling in her left leg then her right. His options to me were to just keep trying the meds, surgery, or euthanasia. Well sorry, euthanasia is OUT!!!, and the meds didnt seem to be working.
My boyfriend's friend had offered sunday to let me use his care credit to help pay for tiki's visit, which i refused. When I made the decision to opt for surgery I texted his friend the next morning and told him about tiki getting worse and asked to use it. He said of course, and i started to cry!! My baby girl was going to get surgery and things would be fine!!!
So yesterday (8/21/12) I take her down to the vet and she is left there and she gets the ct scan and they tell me she now has a ruptured disc, and they will be doing surgery in the morning (8/22). She did very well there over night. Her surgery went very well and they removed the disc and everything that was pushing on the spinal cord to relieve pressure. I am so happy that my little girl is out of surgery and doing well. I will be bringing her home in a few days. I am going to go see her tomorrow though after my boyfriend gets out of work!!! I'm so excited to see her face!
I have read some of the people's stories in this forum before I posted mine, as well as on other sites to get people's insights of their dogs with this problem and how things turned out.
When telling my mom about Tiki and the cost of the surgery and the chance that she may NOT still be able to walk, she said "why would you put her threw that!!! You need to just put her to sleep!!" Well apparently my mom doesn't know me that well and doesn't realize that I would die for this dog!! She seems to think that dogs with disabilities can not live happily and if she is stuck in a wheel chair for the remainder of her life she will be unhappy. I will prove to her that Tiki deserves that 2nd chance and I just couldnt do that to her. I would hate myself if i put her to sleep knowing that there is a chance that she was able to get better and be her fun, loving beagle self again.
So, has anyone had a turn out where they had to put their dogs in a wheel chair? How did they react? How long did it take for them to recover fully?! Do you regret anything?!
