Milo - Brian
As some of you know, our dog Milo has had a rough few weeks and so have we. Almost 3 weeks ago Milo stopped being able to walk with his back legs although he could still move them and feel them; we have no idea what caused this to happen. He also lost control of his bladder. We went to our normal vet for 3 days in a row for pain and anti-inflamation shots but they didn’t help so our vet sent us to a local veterinary hospital that has x-ray equipment and the ability to do lots of tests.
At first we thought it might be a herniated or ruptured disk. To test for that Milo had an x-ray of his spine and a spinal contrast test (they inject a dye into his spinal column so they can see the fluid in the spine). Both test results were normal. The vet gave Milo pain medicine and medicine to stimulate neural activity; they helped some but he was still not able to walk. At this point Shannon and I were terribly worried; we love Milo but he can’t live in state where he can’t walk and can’t control his bladder so we had some tough but sad discussions about what would be next.
A week went by and he got a little better – he regained control of his bladder and took some stumbling steps a few times. We returned to the vet, hoping perhaps that it wasn’t a spinal problem but a problem with his leg. The vet did a nerve test with Milo, very much like what they do with people; the vet tapped Milo’s knee to see if his legged jerked, it did, a good sign. The next test was to hold him upright and drag him backwards with his back legs touching the ground. Normal dogs will step with their legs when you do this (as if to catch their balance), but Milo’s legs remained still. This means that somewhere between his legs and his brain the signals aren’t getting through.
The prognosis is mixed; he could recover normally or he may not. The vet said to return in a month to check his progress; in the meantime we are doing physical therapy with him, dog style. Over the last few days he has show good progress, he walks 5-10 steps at a time and we practice a little bit more each day.
We’ve also got lots of stories related to getting Milo medical help, from vet robberies to a crash-course in spanish words for dog healthcare and more, one day I’ll write some of those down when they seem more funny and less urgent than getting Milo healed.