our poor popper...
(our sweet bubbie with all of his shaved parts…)
my sweetest baby boy hank had to have BACK SURGERY two wednesdays ago. the tuesday evening prior, at the tail end of our FOUR hours of zoom parent/teacher conferences (for some reason the middle school and the high school scheduled them for the same night) we noticed that something was terribly wrong with hank. he was panting outrageously and shaking like someone just scared the bejeezus out of him. his vet was already closed so we took him to the animal ER, V.E.G.: veterinary emergency group. i have to say, they were so KIND there… they offered us drinks and comfortable chairs and snuggled him up trying to help him calm down. after a physical exam, the doctor predicted that it was his spine. (his reaction to touch was equal on each side and he was doing a weird thing with both of his back feet.) she couldn’t be positive without an MRI so she directed us to another ER (C.A.S.E.: colorado animal specialty and emergency) where they have the MRI machine and a neurologist on call. she said in the past, they would have sent us home with pain meds and instructions to monitor him for a few days, but new research has shown that immediate confirmation is better and that if we waited and it was indeed his spine he could be paralyzed by the weekend. HAY SEUS! they gave him methadone and another sedative and we headed over to C.A.S.E. even with the drugs, hank was still panting HARD. the team at C.A.S.E. was also really wonderful. they gave him FENTANYL (which freaked me out but they said they can give dogs these drugs because there is not a fear of them holding up the corner bodega desperate for cash to feed their addiction because we can control how much they get. i was left wondering if there are people out there who take their dogs’ medication.)
anyway - C.A.S.E. kept him overnight to make sure his panting abated (they were concerned that he was going to damage his esophagus) with the plan to administer an MRI the following morning. the MRI would confirm whether the pain was coming from his spine and whether surgery would be a good option. i was terrified that he wouldn’t wake up from the anesthesia necessary for the MRI because he’s a smush face dog with complicated breathing. it felt awful leaving him at C.A.S.E. overnight, except for the fact that everyone was so nice and knowledgeable.
the following morning we got a call from theo’s high school that there was the threat of an “active shooter,” the school was on lockdown and students should not come in. thankfully it was late start day so most kids were not yet on campus, but there WERE close to two hundred students and teachers who had to hide out in the dark while a SWAT team and local police searched for the shooter. i can’t even imagine how horrendous it was for those kids and the teachers. theo was texting various friends from home who were in hiding and we were all pretty paralyzed with fear. the only silver lining to this absolutely horrible event was that both of my kids were not in school and we were all able to visit hank at C.A.S.E. before they put him under. we brought his favorite lamby (handed down from theo to lucy to hank) and smothered him in kisses before he was taken in for his test.
a few hours later we learned that all of the students and staff had been safely evacuated and were in the process of being reunited with their families. i have never been so relieved. and then i got the call from the neurologist. she said that between each vertebrae is a disc similar to a jelly donut. like many frenchies, it turns out hank has a degenerative disease that hardens the jelly in his donuts and one of them had popped out and was causing him the significant pain. she thought the best option was surgery in order to shave down the disc. so they kept hank under and transitioned him into an O.R.
his operation took a few hours but true to her word, the neurologist called as soon as he was finished and said that it had gone very well. at this point it was late afternoon and i was wishing i could have some of hank’s fentanyl or methadone or SOMETHING to help me calm down…it had been a day! we opted for chinese food (and wine) instead.
i picked up hank and his lamby and his cornucopia of drugs the next morning. he had sedatives (to discourage him from being too active), steroids, pain meds and a LONG list of recovery protocols: no running, jumping or moving too actively, he should be crated unless he was sitting right next to me on the sofa, he could only potty while on the leash in case he saw a rabbit or another dog and was tempted to run. we were meant to be “in recovery” for SIX WEEKS! holy crap!
there is nothing i like to do more than cuddle up with hank on the sofa… honestly, i excel at it. but even i need to go to the bathroom or make dinner or go to a meeting sometimes. this has definitely been the most intense nursing i have ever done… harder than lucy’s appendix or theo’s tonsils or covid for either of them. i have a bazillion alarms set on my phone for all of the various mediations which have very specific instructions - with food, crushed up, squirted in, etc. for the first few days i canceled all of my appointments and we stayed in our jams (hank actually just remained in his all togethers since he doesn’t really wear jams) as we administered or ingested meds respectively and made a gazillion trips outside to potty. hank is very good about taking the pills that i put in peanut butter, but he does NOT like the bubble gum flavored liquid that i squirt in… WHY a dog med is bubble gum instead of bacon or roast chicken is beyond me. one of the drugs makes him super thirsty so i have spent more time in the backyard during hank’s recovery than i probably have in our twelve years in this house. unfortunately, it was FOUR BELOW for the first few days. neither of us appreciated that. further, hank is pretty private about his potties so it took some getting used to having me so close when he was doing his business. he kept giving me the side eye until i started covering my eyes.
we are a week in to his recovery program now and some of his medications are being tapered down. he is getting spunkier, which is great, but also means i have to really watch that he doesn’t overdo it. i have big pillows and ottomans blocking off the stairs and the sofa so he doesn’t jump on his own and i finally decided to move downstairs into the guest room for the remainder of my stint as florence nightingale. i wrenched my back carrying him up and down the stairs (NOT a good idea as he is still a “sturdy” guy) so he is confined to the first floor for the foreseeable future.
we are finally into a rhythm and i have started wearing real clothes again (IF i have to leave the house.) well… ONE particular outfit - i found a pair of theo’s old dickies - they have cute railroad stripes and they are nice and baggy. during covid theo had a long period of wearing a pair of adam’s old pants and a specific sweater - we called them his “comfort clothes.” now i am dipping into theo’s closet as a means of coping… that and vacuuming. i am just leaving my beloved vacuum out and plugged in so i can power it up at any moment. i had to change the bag the other day… that is a nerve wracking task that i usually “tom sawyer” to my first husband but he wasn’t around and i REALLY needed to vacuum. i was so nervous that i would somehow explode the bag and make an ungodly mess but i took a deep breath, made sure that i wasn’t due to medicate hank for a long bit so i could take my time and successfully installed the fresh bag. i was pretty proud of myself. and let me tell you… vacuuming with a NEW bag is soothing on a whole other level. all the yuck gets sucked up with so much satisfying force and power.
so i think hank and i are going to weather this frightening experience (mostly) intact. he DOES look like a piggy bank with his long scar but i am confident that when his hair grows back it won’t be too visible. MY scars are on my nervous system… he has loads more jelly donuts that could potentially pop out as well, but we are making lifestyle changes to minimize that possibility - we are getting little stairs for the sofa and the bed and the car and we are going to be very cautious about how much exercise we engage in going forward. i have always suspected that the boulders are wrong about all the “benefits” of physical exertion.
* it turns out that there was never an active shooter at boulder high - this horrifying event was part of a statewide “swatting” campaign… TEN schools across colorado were subjected to this terrorism. i just don’t understand what would compel someone to inflict this kind of terror on so many communities…
** MANY THANKS to all of hank’s sweet friends who dropped off goodies to make him feel better: scout, louie, gladys, bear, maple and june… we really appreciate your thoughtfulness! x0x
*** we just got back from hank’s follow up appointment and his surgeon said he is coming along very nicely… we just have to take care that he doesn’t wonk up any other jelly donuts.