My Best Friend…Part 2

My husband and I have had many sleepless nights, stressing, worrying and crying about the surgery and recovery of my best friend Pica our 16-year old Chihuahua. She had a herniated disk at the C3-C4 area in her neck. That’s really high up and in a scary place. (Didn’t Christopher Reeve break his neck in about that same area?) The surgery sounds tricky. They drill a hole in the bone and remove the damaged disk alleviating pressure on the spine. We are supposed to keep her drugged with painkillers and muscle relaxants for about 10 days. She hates the taste of the meds. It’s a battle to get them down her throat. For 4-6 weeks we have to keep her in a small confined area (so she won’t bounce around and mess up the neck repairs), letting her out only to poop and pee. We have constructed a luxurious pen complete with a quilt inside her crate, an alternate pallet for lounging, a dining and drinking area and puppy pads for those emergencies at night. The little fence surrounding this oasis is tall enough to keep her inside and short enough that we can step over it to replace puppy pads or serve her dinner. I have stitched up a homemade sling out of soft denim and purse handles so we can support her when she goes out to do her business. This makes it a little easier on our backs. I call it my Pica Purse. She has trouble squatting to pee and bending her hind legs into the poop position because of the drugs and because she still has the remnants of some nerve damage on her left side. Like a leaky old ship, she lists to the left side a bit. But she manages to complete her elimination and looks forward to the doggie cookie as her reward. Usually she is so tired that she crawls back into her bed and sleeps some more. At times she shakes and pants and I have to assume these are signs that she is in pain. That means administering more pain meds and dealing with an almost comatose Chihuahua, which is not a natural sight. I guess the next few weeks will give us an idea of how much healing is going on. If she can have a good quality of life for whatever time she has left, we will be happy. We are hoping we will have her with us for a few more years.