Another trip to the hospital.....

It was the animal hospital this time.  Last night, Little Boy went from seeming to be perfectly fine to suddenly stumbling and unable to jump on the couch.  An hour later he had absolutely no use of his back legs and when he tried to move, they dragged around.  I was really freaked out and thought he must have hurt his back (since we've dealt with back problems in Peanut).  He was definitely worse than Peanut has ever been and I wondered whether or not I could wait until morning to take him in.  My sister knows a girl who is a vet tech, so she called her.....she said we needed to take him to the emergency room immediately because it sounded like he could have a blood clot.  Of course I went into panic mode.  My sister came and picked up Little Boy & me - thankfully, because there was no way I could take him myself, being 9 months pregnant and of course Rudy had to stay home with the sleeping Ryder.

We got to the emergency room and they did an assessment.  The doctor thought it was most likely that he had Degenerative Disc disease which resulted in a herniated disc.  The cure: surgery.  And his chances of recovery and being able to walk again would decrease as time passed, so surgery would have to be soon.  They wanted to transfer him to a different ER where they have a neurosurgeon ... alllll the way across town.  But for some reason they wanted to take xrays before sending us, even though that wouldn't actually give a diagnosis and it was likely the other hospital would want to re-do them.  Umm, no thanks. We had them give him an injection for pain and headed off to the other hospital.  As soon as we got there, they whisked him away from me.  Eventually, we were taken into a room where the doctor met with us after she did an assessment.  She went over a whole lot of stuff that we didn't understand, especially being that it was 2am.  Basically, they would have to go down a list of tests to come to a diagnosis (although she too believed it was the herniated disc), ruling out other things before actually getting to the test where they could look at the discs in his back.  She would have to call the neurosurgeon and give him her assessment of Little Boy leaving him to decide whether or not he needed to come in right away or wait until morning (of course there are additional charges for overnight procedures).  The only slightly good news was that he was still able to feel "deep pain" which made his chances of recovery better - once they lose that, it's hard to get function back.  They couldn't start anything until I agreed to all of it - including the surgery, if needed.  Pretty tough decision in the middle of the night!  The estimate they gave me was astronomical.   I called Rudy and we both agreed we couldn't just not do it.  So I literally had to open a credit card in the middle of the night (we couldn't leave without a $3000 deposit) and we had to leave Little Boy there.  I hadn't seen him since we first got there and when they asked if I wanted to say goodbye before leaving, of course I said yes!  Kind of a mistake.  He was resting in a crate and when he saw me he went NUTS.  Crying, dragging himself around the crate, trying to get out.  It was so hard to leave and completely broke my heart.  They called when we were on our way home to tell me that the surgeon felt that it would be ok to wait until morning to see him (relief - some $ saved there)!

So I got home SUPER late and got less than 3 hours of sleep because we had maternity pictures taken this morning.  I was waiting anxiously all morning to receive some news.  Finally the surgeon called, but they hadn't started testing yet (other than bloodwork and xrays to make sure he was healthy enough to go under anesthesia).  He went over some different situations with me and he too thought it was likely the herniated disc although there were some other possibilities.  The big test he had to have required he go under the anesthesia and at that point if he needed to surgery, they'd want to do it right away, while he was already under.  More waiting.  I finally got another call - and to my surprise the words "a little good news" came out of his mouth.  They did NOT find a herniated disc, so surgery was not needed today.  Excellent!!!  However, he did find swelling around the spinal cord and it was unclear what was causing it.  He said probably one of three things - injury to the spine (possibly a small piece that broke off), some type of infection, or a blood clot.  He had to take some fluid to send off for testing and the results won't be in until next week.  For now, they started him on anti-inflammatories to see if he will regain some function.  I hoped he'd be able to come home today, but no.  They will be monitoring him through tomorrow and will only be able to send him home if he is eating/peeing on his own.  I am PRAYING he will come home tomorrow.  I hate not having him here and I know he'd be so much happier here.  I hated not being able to see him today.  They have 2 visiting hours each day, but it's a 45 minute drive .... and you can't take kids.  We had a really busy day today so I decided I'll wait until tomorrow.  If by chance he isn't able to come home tomorrow, I will try to go visit him.  I just don't know if it will be a good thing for him or not - I know he'll be super happy to see me, but if I have to leave him again I know he'll be really upset and I don't know if I can handle that again.

It's been just one thing after another with us and this has put WAY more stress on me than I need right now!  Besides the financial aspect of it - we will be in debt over this for a LONG time - I am really worried about Little Boy and really hope he will make a full recovery and be able to walk and run again!  Then there's the fact that I will be giving birth sometime in the next 4 weeks and no matter when it is, he will still be in recovery mode.  They said he will have to be strictly crated for at least 4 weeks.  So now I have to worry about who is going to care for him while I was in the hospital.  And I've still got an incredibly long list of things to do before baby comes ..... no idea how we'll get it all done.  In fact, we most likely won't.  We'll just take it one day at a time, I guess.  I would appreciate it if everyone could pray for Little Boy - that he will be able to come home tomorrow and that he'll make a full recovery!

I was going to combine this with a 36 week pregnancy post but since it's already sooo long, I'll have to save that.