I got back
into D.C. the evening of Saturday, October 13th, and, just 12 hours later, picked up with
my usual Sunday routine with my dogs and the Sunday papers at Dean and Deluca, albeit
two hours later than usual.
Although
Leben (my male dog) had not recovered even half his walking ability compared to
where he was before his July 17th surgery (he was walking okay then,
but walking), we went ahead with the trip 10 weeks after the surgery and weeks
after the conclusion of the healing period with the vet’s concurrence, qualified
only by the vet’s moving target for Leben’s recovery from the surgery: first
four weeks, then eight weeks, then “many months.” It was actually easier for
Leben and for me to manage him on the road since his walks each day were for the
most part just a step outside the tent or Land Rover. He was holding his own
fairly well, although not really recovering
further.
We set up
camp in the best sites in seven fantastic Canadian provincial/national parks
around the Great Lakes , where we were often the
only campers. We had the wilderness all to ourselves, except for the bears, fox,
wolves, raccoons, squirrels, and chipmunks. (Not one pesky insect this year.) Of
course, this was understandable considering that the temperature at night dipped
to the 20s (we had snow several times) and was rarely above 34 at reveille. (Our
trip blog was www.ontheroad-2012.blogspot.com)
Unfortunately, three weeks into the
trip, over a period of three days, I watched Leben struggle to get up, walk, scratch himself with his rear legs, or
even stay standing on his own. His surgery recovery had failed. He is now
paralyzed. Since Leben never got back to where he was on the morning before his
surgery even on the vet’s stretched recovery schedule, my guess is what happened
is that the vet’s well-intentioned but aggressive, four and a half hour surgery chipped away a lot of
Leben’s critical mid- and lower-spine nerves and shifted the remaining nerves to
make them vulnerable to even conservative normal activity, which best describes
his activity on the trip. This probably would have happened sooner at home
because conservative normal activity there home would have involved much more
than he got on the trip. The vet, of course, does not blame the surgery, but a
fall Leben had on October 3rd. A “chicken and egg” dilemma. (I believe Leben fell because his situation was deteriorating already.) The facts that the
operation took away Leben’s bladder control, that never advanced beyond the
half-way point at four weeks, and that a simple fall 10 weeks after the surgery,
far less than the falls he took in the days after surgery as he tried to walk,
would cause the paralysis that I hoped to avoid by having the surgery, tell me
that the operation was not only unsuccessful in improving Leben’s situation or
preventing any further decline, and, worse, probably set Leben up for paralysis
sooner. Regardless, I put Leben through the surgery because after reviewing his
MRI, knowing what happened to two of my prior male German shepherds, Montag and
Sonntag, and seeing the three steps down Leben had taken over the last two
years, I was convinced that that Leben would become paralyzed sometime over the
next year and that there was a decent chance the surgery could avoid that. (I
also knew that he was a chance that the surgery could “make Leben worse”, as the
vet told me.) So, Leben is where I expected him to be over the next year without
the surgery, but at the cost of 10 hellish weeks for him and more than $15,000.
But if that fall on October 3rd was indeed the cause Leben’s
paralysis, and that fall would not have taken place at home under conservative
management, which is doubtful, I have no regrets about taking that journey with
him and his sister Erde because it was or would have been my last trip with him
as a walking dog. And what a trooper he was. And who knows? Maybe if he had not
had the surgery, he might have become paralyzed on the trip
anyway.
We were 2200
miles from home in Thunder
Bay , Ontario
I am no
longer concerned about what happened to Leben at or after his surgery, or what
would have happened without the surgery. He is paralyzed and no one knows what
his chances are for recovery, if any. I am now concerned only with giving him a
full life and managing him as a paralyzed dog, which takes six to nine hours a
day, the latter when I take him swimming three days a week in Middleburg,
Virginia. My three main goals at this point are to keep up his spirit simply by
doing everything we did before, albeit differently, to learn how to manage him
successfully and either stick with that or improve it, and not to neglect his
magnificent sister, Erde. There are and will be other goals, but those three
take up a lot of time right now. I hope to keep up this blog about our new journey for the
benefit of those who are faced with a similar
situation.
Despite the
unwelcome ending to our journey, the ending could have been worse. And nothing
will detract from the absolutely extraordinary trip it was in so many respects,
for all of us, including Leben. This one for sure will turn out to have been a
life-changer. One life-change that I know for sure is that I will never subject
any dog of mine to spinal surgery again, having struck out three times now,
once, in Leben’s case, where the dog came out worse than when he went in. In the
future, I will wait until paralysis occurs and then go immediately to a
wheelchair. Sonntag led a full, active life in his wheelchair for three and a
half years. Leben is about to do the same for his full life. Why the vets do not
suggest this as an option I do not know. Why I did not chose that option myself
with Sonntag and now with Leben, I also do not know. But that it no longer a
concern of mine either.
