Update

Thank you so much for all the kind words, the rootin', the hopeful stories of your own pets, the Czechoslovakian thumb holding, the good vibes in general. Every comment and email was greatly, greatly appreciated, so wonderful to find first thing this morning. Here's the update:

The MRI results show our pup had a kind of stroke. Specifically, fibrocartilaginous embolic myelopathy, or FCE, or the scariest sounding thing ever. In layman's terms...

Fibrocartilaginous embolic myelopathy is the blockage of blood flow to part of the spinal cord by pieces of cartilage-like material (fibrocartilage) that accidentally get displaced from their normal location in the body and move into blood vessels supplying the spinal cord. This blockage of spinal cord blood flow damages the spinal cord in the same way that a stroke would damage the brain.

There is no medicine, surgery, or treatment for FCE. The spinal cord has to slowly heal itself, as the surrounding disks learn to compensate. Just like a human stroke, there is no telling how fully she will recover. She could be back to 100% in a month or two (well, 90-ish percent, she's not a wee pup anymore), or eighty, or sixty, or she could stay in her current state of infirmity because too much permanent damage was done. However the doctors have assured us that most dogs who have FCE recover to a point where they live productive lives, and some even recover fully. They left us feeling hopeful.

She's home with us now. Wobbly. Scared. Exhausted. As are both of us. But she's home, and can already take a few, drunken steps on her own. We're trying to keep her and our spirits up, in the hopes this is simply the really hard crappy scary part of what will be a full recovery.

Take care, and thanks again.

Posted by Antigeist at February 1, 2005 02:38 PM