The last few days have been incredibly stressful. My husband Matt, Bosco, and I traveled to Asheville, NC from Knoxville, Tn. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive. Everything was fine. The night before we went on a walk. Bosco looked great. He was a little stiff in the morning but that’s kind of normal.
When we got to Asheville and got him out of the car he couldn’t walk. The vet saw him early and without doing an MRI he suspected that either a tumor was pushing against his spine or that the cancer had metastasized to his spine. At that point Bosco looked lethargic, couldn’t urinate, wag his tail, or flip his feet up. The vet offered to euthanize or let us take him home on meds and see how things went. Of course he did not feel that giving him the vaccine was a good idea. We agreed.
We took him home and saw our primary vet so she could show us how to express his bladder. Man it’s hard, physically, to do. We tried at home and couldn’t do it so we ran him back to the vets before they closed and he peed by himself!!! The next day he wagged his tail and we noticed a few other signs of improvement. He was very alert but the meds made him drink a ton of water. He threw up 3 times and had diarrhea. He didn’t want to eat much too.
Then on Saterday, we took him to see his holistic vet. She did acupuncture and some excercises. At the end of the session he flipped his feet instead of letting them hang when we lift him! That was significant progress. Also he has started to kick his feet when we carry him and can bare weight on his back legs with support for balance.
The holistic vet feels that the timing was suspicious. He had an x-ray on Monday where they put him on his back and with the car ride she felt like that could have aggravated his back. So we are doing PT excercise and I’m going to call ourPC vet and the vet involved in the study on Monday.
Matt and I are exhausted. It’s been a ruff few days but things are better than what they were. At least we don’t have to euthanize today, which is what I thought we might be doing. We wount be selfish, but three vets have now told us it is not time and we are so relived.
We are so grateful for the support of all the vets that have helped us. The one involved in the study, we have only met once in person but he was so kind and empathetic. In fact, I thought he might cry in our consultation. Also our holistic vet has been amazing. She is even watching Bosco for a half day next week because we don’t have anyone else that can help us.
And….Matt just told me that Bosco’s feet are twitching while he dreams!!!! This is the first time we have see that!
King of the mountain on his new orthopedic bed with back support. Something our holistic vet suggested.