When Everything Changed...

In February of 2013, we were gone for the day on a Saturday. My husband's parents are retired and were going to our house each day to let Guido out at lunchtime. They had let him out for us that Saturday as well and said he was fine. But, when we got home, he yiped at us when we picked him up so we knew something wasn't right. We took him to the vet on Monday; they did x-rays and found he had some disc issues already at his young age of almost 3 1/2. The vet gave him medication and said to keep him from jumping, running, etc... We tried our best, but keeping a very active young dog from doing the things he loves can be difficult. He was doing great until the end of April and again on a Saturday morning he was yiping when we would pick him up. The vet said to give him the meds we were keeping on hand so we did, but by that night he was not able to stand up. We rushed him to the vet's office in the middle of the night. He was given an injection and we waited.

By Sunday afternoon, it was obvious we needed to do something else. We took him to the University of Illinois School of Veterinary Medicine. He was given an exam and we were told he required emergency surgery due to disc problems. It turned out Guido had not one, but two discs that had ruptured in his spine. Of course we were given all the information we needed and I will never forget being told that he could end up paralyzed. I started crying immediately. Leaving him there to have surgery was one of the most difficult things we have ever had to do. The staff there is beyond wonderful and the doctor called us at every step to give us an update. He came through the surgery fine and Monday we thought, ok we can get through this. Then on Tuesday morning I got a call from the surgeon telling me Guido was showing signs of a rare and fatal complication. The paralysis was moving upward toward his neck. We rushed down there to be able to talk to the doctors and see him. He was pretty out of it, but still enjoyed being with us as much as we enjoyed being with him. The rest of that week was a living hell. We just kept waiting for the call that would be the student or another staff person telling us we had reached the point of having to put him down because of the complication. I took Thursday and Friday off and rented a hotel room in Champaign so I could be closer. Rodney went to work, but drove down both Thursday and Friday night. Saturday we were told we could take him home and the surgeon told us she was never so happy to be wrong! They think the paralysis moved up a bit due to how severe his disc ruptures were. We got him home on Saturday, but ended up driving right back to U of I that evening. He started panting a lot and wasn't acting right. Guido ended up staying there another week. He seemed to have pain in his neck, which was scary to us and we didn't know if we were right back at that point of possibly losing him. The physical therapist started working with him after a few days of letting him rest and pain medications. Over the next few weeks, it was a week home, a week at therapy, a week home, a week at therapy. We then made the decision that, since he was not making any significant improvements, it was time to just let him be him.

Guido after surgery.

Guido is deep pain negative paraplegic, which means he does not have the use of his back legs and cannot urinate on his own. Thankfully, we were able to learn how to express his bladder (fancy way of saying giving him a squeeze to make the pee come out) and his therapist did all the measurements for us so we could get his wheelchair ordered from a great company in Hawaii called Doggon Wheels. We ordered the wheelchair so that he would have it during one of his weeks of therapy so the therapist could get him acclimated to it. He took right to his wheelchair and gets around great in it. Although he has given his Gramma a few scares when he's gotten going to0 fast and hit something in their house causing it to flip. He doesn't seem to mind; he just gets back up (with some assistance of course!) and gets going again.