[Dailydrool] Elsinore buggered her back, Part II

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

When I got Elsinore out of the car at the vet's, I was surprised and pleased to see she was moving somewhat better than she'd been at home. She even wanted to stop and smell a few things on her way to the door. During her exam, her response time during the foot-flip test was close to normal. The vet decided that since Elsinore was presenting only a lot of back pain and no neurological deficiencies, steroids weren't needed. I agreed but told her if I saw any deterioration (and with a weekend right on our heels, it's Murphy's Law that a dog will fall apart then), I would take Elsinore to the emergency vet clinic that has a neurologist and surgeon on staff. As much as I like my regular vet, a disk issue is a job for a specialist. Fortunately she recognized that and said that's where she'd recommend I go. 

The vet offered to do an x-ray, but soft tissues don't show up on x-rays. I decided that if Elsinore started showing neurological impairment, then we'd have a specialist do a myleogram (x-ray with dye contrast) or MRI to determine what's going on. But since Elsinore was passing the foot-flip test and showing normal responses to pain and tickling, we'd treat the symptoms with half a Rimadyl twice a day. The vet also gave Elsinore five more days of the antibiotic she'd been on for the UTI, since the vet was still seeing a few red blood cells in her urine.

Elsinore cried through her muzzle when I carefully lifted her back into the car and then out of it again when we got home. 

Young Charlie, who'd had high hopes for his morning, was disappointed in the way things had turned out. But he handled it well, settling in philosophically to enjoy the car ride back home. He does like to ride in the car and look out the windows.

Elsinore spent the rest of the day on her bed. She didn't want to eat, and she really didn't want to take the pills. I felt like a lion tamer trying to get them down her throat, pinching her muzzle to get her to open her jaws and snatching my fingers back after quickly popping a pill down her throat. I realized having her head held back for this was adding to her back pain, and yet there wasn't much I could think to do about it except to be as quick as I could and feel grateful I was only having to do it three times a day instead of four or five. 

In case anyone has any illusions, Elsinore is *not* a good or grateful patient. Every time I went over to check on her to see if she was shivering (a sign of an increase in pain) or showing signs of starting to curl up loosely on her bed (a sign of a decrease in pain), she'd lock unfriendly eyes on my anxious ones and snarl at me. I'm not sure where she learned the language she was using, but it was truly ugly. I was even more distressed when she wanted to self-segregate in the backyard, and I put a stop to that pretty quickly. I wanted her inside and right where I could see her. So she said something nasty about my mother and would have given me the finger if she'd been equipped with any. 

This went on for three very long days.

On the fourth day, Elsinore stopped being so unpleasant, started curling up slightly on her bed, took her pills more easily (and, apparently, painlessly), and didn't have to be coaxed as much to eat her meals. 

While all this was going on, I was trying to meet a work deadline for an editing project. It was hard to concentrate on the manuscript because I couldn't stop myself from checking on Elsinore's status every fifteen minutes and being mentally prepared to race her off to the emergency vet specialists and have to make hard decisions. (This is why it's taken me so long to post about this on the Drool. Between the deadline, caring for Elsinore, and dealing with some new stuff with my mother, who lives around the corner and has been aging about as ungracefully as one could possibly age, I didn't have time left over.) 

A week after Elsinore's back started giving her trouble the doggie chiropractor came out to check on her. He said she was badly jammed up in her left hip and L1-2 area, and that was causing a chain reaction that culminated in her right shoulder. In for a penny, in for a pound, I had him adjust Charlie as well. Interestingly, Charlie was somewhat jammed in his right hip going up to his left shoulder. The doggie chiropractor didn't know what exactly had caused Elsinore's jam, but he was able to fix it. By the time he was done with both hounds, they could turn tight circles in both directions with ease and fluidity. He said the real test would be how well Elsinore would do after she finished her Rimadyl prescription.

I'm vastly relieved to report that Elsinore has been doing very, very well since her last Rimadyl on Sunday. She's back to being her bossy but cheerful self, is once again reminding me of afternoon snack times, and hasn't sworn at me in days. But she's sleeping more and has to be invited to go eat her breakfast whereas in the past she'd ask me when I planned on serving it. This back episode has reminded just how little time we could have left with her, and that's made every day since a day I've tried harder to turn into a good one were it to be her last. My mother says not to give up on Elsinore too soon, that she has a lot of fight left in her. Judging from Elsinore's language a couple weeks ago, I guess my mother's probably right. But I still make sure I tell Elsinore I love her every night when I put her to bed.

Elizabeth