Lily

About two weeks ago, we woke up one morning and Lily could not get up.  She was in obvious pain.  Lily is 16 years old and the vet has been telling us that she will need to go on steroids in the near future.  Barbara took Lily to the Vet’s office fully expecting to start her on a new medication.  The vet looked her over and said that she was in pain and not much could be done for her.  Lily had a spinal stroke.  Her right rear leg was paralyzed.  The vet said that we should consider putting her down.  We talked about it and made an appointment for the following day.  The rest of the day was pretty rough.

The next day, our regular vet looks at her and says, “Lily does not need to be put down.  She is not feeling much pain today and dogs often recover from this.”  Hunh?? So we take her home with a new medication.  She is not moving around much, but seems to be in pretty good spirits.

Over the next few days, Barbara, Ben and I take turns dog-sitting Lily and periodically carrying her outside to do her business.  After a few days of carrying her around, Ben hurt his rotator cuff, I hurt my back and Barbara hurt her wrists and back!  We finally found a way of putting Lily on a blanket and then two of us would lift the blanket and carry her outside.  Much less stress on backs and joints.

After a few days, Lily seemed pretty lethargic, just laying on her bed all day.  The next morning, we carried her outside to do her business.  We are standing around, discussing whether we are going to need to put her down after all.  All of a sudden, she gets up and goes over to the bushes.  When she is done there, she starts trotting down the sidewalk past the neighbor’s house.  She looks back at us wondering why our jaws have dropped to the ground.  “Where did that come from?” 

She trotted back and Barbara took her for a walk half way down the block and back.  Not a long walk, but such an improvement over the last week.  Over the second week, she has continued to improve.  Getting a little better each day.  At this point, she is getting around pretty well.  She is still pretty clumsy.  We have spread small rugs around the hardwood floors to give her better footing and we don’t let her climb the steps to the second floor.

We have no idea what the future holds.  As mentioned earlier, she is pretty old and is in declining health.  On the other hand, she may continue to recover from the stroke and be perfectly fine.  We had planned to take several trips investigating possible move destinations.  However, we don’t know if the kennel will take her in her current situation.    We not sure what we will do with her during the open houses.  And we are not sure how the move will affect her.  Just taking it one day at a time.