This past week has been horrible. We are exhausted and really hoping this coming week brings better days.
On the 4th of July we went to visit family and watch fireworks. When we got home late that night we found that our 4 year old dachshund Hershey couldn’t move his back legs or tail. After 6 hours at the emergency pet hospital we found out that he had ruptured a disk in his spine and even with surgery he only had a 20% chance of walking again. Unfortunately we couldn’t afford the $4,500 surgery anyway so we went the medication route.
We were sad but on Monday he started acting more like himself and walking him with a sling under his back legs was pretty easy. It is also really easy to help a male dog to express his bladder so that made things easier. He was clumsy but was eating and drinking normally. We started looking up doggie wheelchair ideas and Patrick started to plan how he was going to make Hershey’s. Tuesday morning went well he was still doing good and wanted to be outside more but to heal we had to keep him crated for 4-5 weeks. I knew it was going to be tough but Hershey liked the attention he was getting from being inside all the time. That night he started acting like he wasn’t feeling very well but was still eating fine. Wednesday morning it just went down hill from there. The vet couldn’t fit him in to see him that afternoon and I will always regret not taking him somewhere else to save him from 24 hours of unnecessary pain.
Myelomalacia is when the spinal cord starts to die. It pretty rare and only happens in about 5 to 10% of severe spinal cord injuries. It is always fatal and from what I’ve read even if we could have gotten the surgery it would have happened.
We had to say goodbye to our sweet boy and we are still pretty heartbroken. Hershey LOVED Jace. They would play with balls and Jace would sneak him his leftovers. He liked sleeping long ways between Patrick and I in bed and we would have to “lock” him under the sheet to get him to calm down. He was always stuck in puppy mood. He was always so excited and I’m glad now that he never grew out of it. I will miss not being able to do the Hershey call anymore and see his tail go 90 miles an hour. Or walking into the bathroom to see all of our toilet paper destroyed because we forgot the giant 32 count pack on the bathroom floor.
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