Sarah's Josie 6/5 Surgery

Josie had surgery 6/5 for a ruptured L1-2 disk that was 70% compressing her spinal cord. She was deep pain negative on the morning of 6/5. When we woke up she was dragging her legs and was in extreme pain. We rushed to our regular vet who determined she was deep pain negative and sent us to a neurologist. We did an MRI that showed she was a good candidate for surgery and the surgery was performed that afternoon. 

Prior to this on Saturday night 6/1 Josie didn't come upstairs to go to bed and was restless - it looked like she had to poop but couldn't poop. We crated her all day Sunday thinking she had eaten something - a real possibility with a 5 year old dropping crumbs around the house. Monday 6/3 she still wasn't herself and we took her to our Vet. She diagnosed back pain and prescribed pain meds. She told us not to let Josie do stairs or play. She didn't tell us to do strict crate rest and she didn't tell us it was IVDD. I wasn't educated enough about back issues and I will forever wonder if we could have spared Josie the surgery if she had been on STRICT crate rest from Saturday.

Josie's surgery went well - they removed a lot of disc material and the next morning she could feel her toes again. Saturday 6/8 she came home. She has been comfortable and slowly regaining function every day. Sunday 6/9 she regained her ability to pee yay!!!! Then she started to be able to move her hips a little bit. I saw her lifting her leg at the hip to lick her foot. Now she can fully posture to pee. I don't think she can control her feet yet because she still knuckles all the time. She is so good about doing her passive range of motion exercises and is doing really good with her standing practice. I am hoping that after the staples come out we can start water therapy. 

She came home on 6 meds... tramadol, gabapentin, rimadyl, pepcid, and 2 for peeing. We stopped the pee meds that first sunday since she could urinate on her own. We stopped the Rimadyl Wednesday 6/12 because she started throwing up. She is currently on 25mg Tramadol and 75mg Gabapentin every 8 hours. Her pain is very well controlled. I think we will try and stretch out the pain meds tomorrow and she if she is ready to go down to every 12 hours. I am thinking I may try and off set them so that they aren't wearing off at the same time. For instance give her tramadol at 10pm and 10am and the Gabapentin at 7am and 7 pm. Has anyone else tried that? Did it help with pain control? 

Josie is being very good about crate rest. We got a new larger top open crate - her old one was too small to turn around easily in - and Josie LOVES it! I have gotten her some new toys to help keep her entertained and when she gets restless I do her therapy which tires her out. 

While she is peeing on her own she is still wetting the crate every other day or so. I don't know if she just can't hold it overnight anymore or what. She is also getting a rash on her underside. It looks like diaper rash. I have been cleaning her off every time I change her bedding. I don't know what else to do to clear it up. The rash just started yesterday 6/15.

We are also in the process of making our house back friendly. We have a sunken family room so my dad is building ramps for Josie. 

We go Friday to have her staples removed and a follow up evaluation at the Neurologist.