Longer Days Ahead

Though I had alluded to it in my last post, I thought I probably shouldn’t leave my readers and friends hanging when it comes to Moses’ health roller-coaster.

Moses was diagnosed with a spinal cyst.

Last Monday, we had our meeting with the surgeon.  I can’t say we went there completely objective and undecided; in the days leading up to the appointment we’d pretty much decided we’d be going forward with surgery if we got the reassurances we were looking for.

We did.

The studies I had found on my own were accurate representations of a prognosis: short-term outcome (up to 2 years post-surgery) has very good odds (93%), and long-term outcome has decent odds (70%) – which actually is considered quite positive when it’s a neurological condition.  And Moses’ overall health otherwise, age, and our relatively early diagnosis all work in his favour.  Not to mention the surgeon has experience with these cysts and the procedure and is confident herself.

The other side of the conversation is that without surgery, Moses will not get better.  Medical management may slow progression, but he won’t gain any motion back and will certainly continue to get worse.

http://www.k-9orthotics.com

So Moses goes in for surgery on Monday.

He will probably be in the vet’s care for a couple of days and will need a lot of help getting around, and some physio appointments.

The Husband has already started thinking about how to put together a wheelchair to assist in the rehab process, similar to the one to the left.

And the long-term hope is that Moses returns to a happy, healthy, moderately active dog at the end of it all.

No more carting, no extraneous hikes in the mountains, but we’d like to see him able to play and swim again, go back to hour-long daily walks, and just generally accompany us everywhere, just like before.

There’s a certain amount of anxiety about how things will go on Monday, but we’re staying positive.

And no, going forward with surgery wasn’t the cheapest decision – but he’s worth it.

Fingers crossed.