Riley Recovery

On my last blog post (last friday) Riley had just had his hemilaminectomy procedure to remove the cyst pressing on his spinal cord.  His official diagnosis was Wobbler's Sydrome with mild stenosis of the spinal canal at C4 and cystic synovial proliferation of the left C5-C6 articular facet.  The good news is that all of his discs seem to be in quite good shape.  The surgeon had felt that the procedure had gone well and "the rest is up to Riley".

I am happy to report that Riley was already up and mobile the morning after surgery.  I saw him in the morning and he tried to sit up to greet me and then we had a good snuggle together with lots of tail wags and licks.  When I saw him again that evening he stood up to greet me.  This is considered a painful surgery for dogs to recover from because there is a long incision on the back of the neck which involves opening up a lot of muscle as the spinal cord runs fairly close to the throat area.  A lot of dogs don't want to lift their head or move very much but my wonderful hard-headed labrador was able to cope well with that and by sunday evening he was able to walk out to see me for our visit.  Pneumonia is also a real risk after this type of surgery so having him mobile so quickly was very important in preventing that.  He was set to be discharged on monday afternoon but I had them keep him until tuesday morning so I could pick him him and head out on the long drive home.

The surgeon was very pleased with his progress and felt that he already had similar or better neuro function at discharge as he had prior to the surgery.  He walks well unassisted but we need to really watch him on slippery floors as he is still a bit wobbly on his right hind with some occasional mild scuffing.  That should improve as the inflamation from surgery decreases and hopefully the spine can recover from some of compression.  I really am quite thrilled with how he is doing less than one week from his surgery! 

I confess to fighting thoughts in the hours leading up to surgery of just throwing him in my truck and running away.  The care and compassion we received was amazing but it was still incredibly scary and stressful for me.  When we first checked in we were assigned a fourth year medical student who is then the chief contact for both the dog and the owner through the entire stay.  Our student was still a tad awkward with the human side of things but she was wonderful with Riley and he really liked her.  The surgeon was very honest, patient and thorough.  Everyone from the receptionist to the head of the neurology department was kind and caring to both humans and animals.  It was both inspiring and heart breaking to see and meet other owners and animals receiving treatment at the facility.

We returned home tuesday evening and are settling into the new "normal" for now.  Riley will be severely restricted for six weeks.  He is confined in an exercise pen and allowed out 3-5 times per day for five minute potty walks.  He objected loudly to this the first evening but we seem to be working things out now.  I have slept downstairs with him since we came home to settle him into the new routine and make sure he isn't experiencing any pain.  Hopefully I can move back upstairs to my own bed this weekend.  After the first six weeks we can then begin to slowly return to normal exercise levels over the next two months.  He should probably never play tug, on-land fetch or do a lot of jumping activity as he is always going to be at risk of cervical problems.  Swimming is encouraged during recovery so we will be looking into some local therapy pools.

Stella went with me on this trip and I was glad to have her along.  She was good company and kept me from going crazy waiting for news.  She unfortunately came down with kennel cough likely from a conformation show we attended the weekend before we left.  Luckily she seemed to bounce back very quickly and Riley has not shown any signs of kennel cough.  She also decided to start her heat cycle the day before we headed home after weeks of waiting.  Life is never dull with dogs!

Here are a few pics of my boy:

First morning after surgery

24 hours after surgery

48 hours after surgery

All About Riley

I am writing this blog post from a hotel room in Pullman, Washington.  Today Riley had surgery to fix the compression on his spine at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Washington State University (WSU).  He is currently heavily sedated and resting in ICU at the hospital.  I will be able to see him tomorrow. 

I last blogged about Riley here just after we had an MRI done in Vancouver.  It took a little while to get answers but we finally met with the neurosurgeon and viewed the MRI.  His recommendation was to do surgery to remove the cyst and relieve the pressure on the spinal cord.  The quote for surgery was between $7,000 to $9,000 assuming there were no major complications or extensive rehab required.  I facebooked about this and lots of friends chimed in with recommendations for the wonderful facility here at WSU.  I contacted them and long story short here we are and the quote is less than half price.  The neurologist in Vancouver was very understanding and cooperative about providing records.

The decision to do the surgery has been very difficult.  Riley has been coping fairly well with the situation but he is a true labrador with high pain tolerance and likely has been living with this for quite a while before the symptoms became as noticeable.  There have been signs of significant discomfort present for him.  He is very restless and rarely sleeps for long periods without shifting positions.  The angle when he poops seems very uncomfortable for him.   He has recently begun a lot of licking of his legs which can indicate pins & needles sensations to those limbs.  He holds his head low quite a lot while we are walking and has a roached back position.  We could have opted to wait but the risk becomes that the compression worsens and causes disc damage and quite possibly paralysis.  It was also possible that he may have continued as he was for quite a long time.  I explored some natural alternatives such as acupuncture but the experts I asked figured that it was highly unlikely it would help the situation.  Natural is my treatment of choice for most things but treatments can also be quite expensive.  We are stretching to afford this surgery and honestly spending a bunch of money to see if those alternatives would work just makes the surgery less of a do-able financial decision. 

We arrived in Pullman on tuesday evening and met with the hospital for a consult on wednesday.  They wished to redo the MRI as the machine here is much stronger and they wanted to determine if the disc below the problem area was affected.  That would mean a difference in the surgery plan.   We also did a spinal tap to insure that the symptoms were not being caused by an infection in the brain or spine.The disc ended up being fine but then his blood work showed some red blood cell abnormalities which could indicate liver or spleen tumour.  The same abnormalities were present in his prior blood work a few months ago.  He had an ultrasound yesterday to review those areas and all was determined okay and that the abnormalities were probably normal for him. 

I dropped him off this morning for surgery.  The procedure is called a hemilaminectomy and involves going in from the top of his neck down to remove a section of bone over the spinal cord and then remove the material causing the pressure on the spinal cord.  The neuro surgeon here refers to Riley's condition as a form of wobblers which is basically the name for cervical vertebral instability.  The goal of surgery is to prevent further deterioration.  He likely will always have a bit of a wonky movement but that depends on the level of permanent damage.

The surgeon said that the procedure went as planned and that they removed a lot of the pressure on the spinal cord.  The rest is now up to Riley.  Hopefully this is where that crazy labrador thing kicks in and he will be up and moving around in the next few days.  We have a long few months ahead of us for recovery but for now I will happily take everyone's good wishes and happy thoughts for my boy.  I will blog more in the next few days to update and tell more about the procedure.

Update here on post surgery.