Just a quick update- Linus is “walking” around in his sling. He still has lots of residual weakness and loss of feeling in both feet- for example he still won’t “flip” his back paws around if he lands on the top of his feet instead of the bottom of his pads.
HOWEVER, these are some awesome improvements nonetheless! For example- he wagged his tail (nub, really) the other day!! WHOOO WHOOO We were doing cartwheels of joy around here over that one.
He also was using his back legs to scratch his ears, which was verrrry exciting.
So slow, but steady gains. He also has control of his urine output and bowels, which increased our quality of life (for every one of us!) substantially. The rehab process is long, slow and arduous. It’s not about quick and easy fixes… it’s a lot of hard work for small little gains over drawn out increments of time. Three yards and a pile of dirt, as my dad would say. Still doing physical therapy on him every six hours, and also taking him to acupuncture once a week. He has a meeting with his doggie neurosurgeon tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll have a nice progress report.
I think the biggest thing that’s an issue now is both of us being super paranoid we are going to kill him, or break him, or hurt him further. We have to carry him up and down the stairs a lot since he can’t do them himself. And he’s a 30lb dog! Imagine doing this surgery with a great dane or something. Imagine if I still lived in my former NYC 5th floor walk up! Shesh Carrying him is always a mental worry now… neither of us are certain how “stable” his back is at all. It’s very nerve wracking!
Here he is walking through La Mission on a rainy San Francisco Saturday:
GO LINUS, GO!!
Thank you all for the love, kind words, thoughts, encouragement and support. It means the world and really helps
<3,
cj
This morning at group workout with Ricky, we did deadlifts, deadlifts and more deadlifts.
12 sets of 10 reps, all on top of a warmup that was …. DEADLIFTS. I was repping at 185lbs for the first half, but then was losing grip strength in my right hand and couldn’t keep the bar even. It’s funny how the weakest part is always your stupid hands and grip strength! SOOOOO frustrating!! And you *know* we are not allowed to cheat with the grip straps, since as Ricky put it “we lift raw.” I finished out at 135lbs and by the 12th set even that was killing me. Right now my hands feel totally dead. I couldn’t even hold and grip my KEYS well to open the door when I got home.
Ohh!! Guess what! Yesterday I signed up for a powerlifting competition! It’s in Pleasanton in the beginning of January. Not really feeling like I’ll be ready for it, but going to try it out nonetheless. A bunch of people I train with at Body Mechanix are doing it, so at least there will be some group support, and we can have fun cheering each other on. I’m really stoked to have something tangible to train for.
The powerlifting competition is only three exercises: squats, deadlifts and bench. I’m not out to hit any goals except have fun. Here is the humiliating part- we have to wear singlets for the competition. They’re basically a spandex outfit with shorts and a bib.
^^^ Yiesh!!
So… more motivation to eat clean until the competition!
Kind of looks like my old Ironman outfit:
although I doubt I could just wear that, because the triathlon outfit has padding in the butt for the bike ride.
Update on Linus coming later today. Thank you again everyone for the thoughts and well wishes. He is doing MUCH BETTER and I will post some photos (and maybe even a video of him “walking” in his sling) later today.
I just wanted to say thank you for all of the thoughts, advice and good vibes you have been sending our way. It’s really helped reading all of the comments and we’ve learned a lot.
I’m actually away at this medical conference for work this weekend (can you believe it!! arggh stupid rest of life why couldn’t you just pause and let me just handle this one problem without the world still turning!) and Wonderful and Noble Earl is holding down the fort at home until I get back on Sunday night.
LINUS CAME HOME TONIGHT!! He has a littttttttle bit of movement in his right rear leg and sensation in both feet. So that’s great news. According to his surgeon, he could be walking in around 7-10 days, although it might take up to 21 days. In the meantime, we have to give him physical therapy every 6 hours and clean his catheter every eight hours.
Here he is in his “walker” … this is how you walk him you basically hold up his rear end and then let the front legs do the walkin
And here he is chillin out in bed, which is prettymuch ALL he’ll be doing for the next four weeks:
Thank you thank you again for all of the thoughts, advice, stories and vibes.
Ceej
Finally had the time and enough of a clear head to write out a full post detailing exactly what happened yesterday.
Yesterday at about 11:30am (my day off… thank GOD I was home/around), due to the rapid deterioration of what had previously been our dog’s slight limp, I rushed him to our Orthopedic surgeon vet. It came out of nowhere… it was almost like he was getting worse by the minute. By the time we were at that vet he was completely dragging his back right foot (not the leg he’d had ACL surgery on).
The orthopedic surgeon, who had repaired dogger’s ACL just five weeks ago, quickly assessed and determined this was neurological, spinal related issue and referred us to his colleague, the Neurologist Surgeon Vet at the Specialist/emergency pet hospital clear across town. He called his direct line and got us right in. We headed over. I did my very best to use every rapid but gentle code 3 low g-force driving maneuver I had in my arsenal because poor puppeh quivered and shook in pain with every single bump and turn.
After a very detailed assessment the surprisingly (!!) young and handsome Neurologist informed me that the dog needed to have surgery that night, asap, and he could hopefully repair him to full function. He gave us a 90% odds of a full recovery. “Recovery” in this case meaning the dog would be able to walk and urinate on his own. The alternative to the surgery is that the dog would be paralyzed, not able to walk, urinate or defecate on his own, and would most likely have to be put down.
By this time Linus couldn’t even walk with EITHER back leg, he would just drag them behind him… sadly all askew at odd angles and folded over onto each other all mangled up looking
It was getting late (3:30pm). The neurologist had scrubbed out from supervising ANOTHER surgery to see us. He would have to go finish that one 1st then call in his Emergency Night Surgery Team to work on our pooch- they would start at about 8pm through midnight or whenever they were done.
“I’m going to give you a few minutes to decide what you want to do.”
Fucking hell.
The projected cost was 6k. Have I mentioned that you have to pay the entire cost up front?
He’s 7 years old. We’ve only had him 2 years. He’s a HUGE part of our lives… a beloved member of our family. But 6k isn’t mere pocket change to us. It was really tough decision.
Particularly when your significant other is at his office, ducking out from a meeting to have this conversation over the phone, can’t look each other in the eye or give each other a hug, and you both feel totally blindsided because this decision just came out of absolutely no where.
Remember this cheesy but kinda nice 90′s song…?
Specifically, the part where it says,
“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind: the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”
…. seems pretty darn accurate right now.
We decided to do the surgery.
In a nutshell, our rationale was basically, “he’s been a good dog.” Linus has been nothing short of incredibly loyal to us. We would be loyal to him.
Could you say no to this face?
Sticker shock?
itemized breakdown:
Back on the homefront, kitten (sportin her OWN post-op cone of shame) swooped in to enjoy her newfound status as Sole Possessor of All Beds in The House:
Today we sat on tenterhooks for call from the surgeon about how it went, and if he’s walking yet. I was participating in (trapped in!) this all-day mandatory training session with these tough macho Paramedics and firefighter-type dudes. Didn’t know many of them that well. Was the only girl at the meeting. Every time my mind would drift off protocols and wander to Buddy, wondering how he was doing and if he was gonna pull through… my damn eyes would start tearing up. Not exactly the best environment to bring on the waterworks!!! Tried to play it off like allergies and my sniffles like a cold. Don’t know if I fooled ‘em. Freaking sucked.
Got off work, met up with nerdlove and beelined to the good meat market where we stocked up on thick cut, high quality bacon. Cooked it up and off we went to visiting hours at what is basically the doggy ICU.
He’s not walking yet, but he’s alive and his ears perked up when he saw us.
Rear legs still sadly draggin. They psuedo-carried him out to us in sort of a rear end hoist, with him walking on his front legs only.
ze coup de grâce:
If he doesn’t walk within 2-3 days, we’ll know the surgery was a failure. Can hardly bear to write that out, it’s deeply troubling just to contemplate.
I guess… if he doesn’t make it and after all this we still have to put him down… (not like in that case we would get reimbursed for the procedure!) I won’t regret it. Ultimately I guess it’s good to err on the side of your heart when making a decision like this, and not your wallet.
I went with wallowing in a Beer + Sad Expression —> Elicitation of free shot from the bartender:
Rough day.
ROUGH day.
Imagine if you have a window of 20 minutes to answer, “well, you either pay 6k up front right now for this emergency surgery for your dog, or else he’s permanently paralyzed and will have to be put down.”
…. ummm….
6k is a lot of money. Combined with the 3k we just spent on him for his ACL repair, plus the 1.5k we spent on the cat who decided to get two UTIs and infect and rupture her anal glands (yuck)… we’re approaching 10k just on ani-mules for the past 5 weeks. :::exhale:::
How much constitutes “too much?” At what point is the “contract” you have between you and this trusting, loving and loyal soul moot?
At what point are you putting your own dreams aside (Paramedic school, travel to see afar and much missed family) aside to possibly only extend a life by a little? When is a dog just “a dog” and not a member of your family?
How the HELL does anyone make these freaking decisions??!
We decided to do it. “He’s been a good dog.” *cry* But I’ll tell you, it was NOT an easy decision to make.
Linus is under the knife RIGHT NOW and could be in the emergency vet hospital for up to 3 days. We’re allowed to go see him during Visiting Hours tomorrow, from 8pm-10pm. We can bring some special treats and toys. He saw the “best of the best” Neurosurgeon and I’m sure they did a wonderful job. Did you even know dog neurosurgeons existed?
:sigh:
More details of the exact procedure to come… but in the meantime I needed to make a complain-y post to wallow. Grab a Stella and join me and Andrea (((thannnk you))) and I in this cozy booth. My misery right now could use some company.
I was asked to tell you that Courtney killed her computer and it is currently at HP being revived. So posting will be sporadic until her laptop returns.
Started off the morning with Ricky, doing “a symphony of deadlifts.” Basically, deadlifts to warm up, then low rep heavy sets of deadlifts, then dimel deadlifts, and finally we ended with a 90 second deadlift hold. OOF. Afterwards I had a dr. appointment for some pain in my hand, took Linus on walk to the polls (see below photo), conducted a SUPER SECRET ERRAND regarding my beloved’s Christmas present (start early!), went to a cafe and studied for an hour for an upcoming conference, had an acupuncture appointment for the pain in my hand, and finally, picked up and worked an open night half of a shift at work.
Busy, busy! But productive and overall very nice. Voting wasn’t easy; I had to go to a few different polling places because they still had our last address on file. But at least I got a sticker!
In other news, I am giving a lecture on Thursday night at the San Francisco Paramedic Association. I am so excited, however… they opened my seminar up to Paramedics as well! AHHH! Previously, my lectures have only been to the EMT-B students, which perhaps because I am an alumni of their EMT program, is not *all* that intimidating. Now… the fact that I’ll be presenting to Paramedics who could potentially be working alongside right now out in the field…. yikes! No pressure.
Here’s the blurb for my presentation, if you’re interested:
Hey Look, I’m Certified! Now What?
As an EMT or Paramedic student, you’ve taken the first step towards an
exciting and fulfilling career in EMS. In this workshop you will learn
everything you need to know to go out into the field and land a job! These
days the employment market is tough, however armed with these skills the
prepared, motivated and savvy student will be able to procure gainful
employment. Resume building, networking, job hunting strategies, and
interview prep will be covered. Learn where you can take your career with
your new certification, and how to get there.
Please join us for this informative and interactive session while networking
with others wishing to serve as EMS professionals!
DATE: Thursday November 4th
TIME: 5:00pm to 6:30pm
PLACE: SFPA 657 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
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