Fiona Update...

Fiona is doing fantastic. We had another scare recently though. It started when we noticed Fiona acting differently; she was extra clingy, wanting to sit on our chest when we were in bed, she refused all food unless we hand fed it to her, refused water unless we brought the water bowl to her, and didn't want to really move around. We thought it might be her back acting up, so we performed our own mini exam on her (we learned a lot from watching the vets when she was having problems with her back) - flipping her hind paws over to make sure they'd rotate back, we watched her walk, we pressed on her spine... she passed all the tests.

After we decided we probably weren't qualified to diagnose her, we took her to the ER. They weren't able to determine what was wrong with her. But she wasn't getting any better, so we took her back to the ER, still nothing. Finally, we took her to the regular vet, who performed a blood sample on her and Xray, both came back normal. It was so frustrating not knowing what was going on with her. After a couple of days, I realized that they didn't perform a urine test, which should be standard with the bloodwork, so we took her back to the vet to request that this be done. Eureka! Urine sample came back positive for a bladder infection. She was given antibiotics and is finally back to normal. We went on a long walk today and she was thrilled. I was pretty exhausted by the time we reached out building, but Fiona wanted to keep going.... I had to carry her to our door because she wouldn't budge unless it was to go out again! She just loves being outside! Hopefully the weather will get a bit nicer so we can spend more time outside.

Anyway, I like our vet, but I can't believe they overlooked the urine sample. They gave her muscle relaxants, pain killers and steroids thinking that she may have just pulled a muscle. Her poor little liver... all those drugs that she didn't even need. We need to make friends with a Vet or we've decided either Aaron or I should become a Vet - the ROI would be worth it for how many times Fiona has to visit the Vet!!!

Fiona smelling the daffodils...

Another gorgeous day in Portland yesterday, so we took advantage of it by taking Fiona to Washington Park to let her rome around on the grass a bit there. She did fantastic and in fact didn't want to come home when we told her it was time to go. As soon as we got to the car though, she fell asleep. I think we were only out there for about 20 minutes...

She's a Diva

It's GORGEOUS in Portland today, so I thought I'd take Fiona to the park, but keep her on the leash. It was a bit heart-breaking because there were a couple of other Frenchies at the doggy park playing, and Fiona had to just sit there and watch them play... I could tell she definitely wanted in with them. Instead, I let her jog on the grass for a bit, which she loved. She loved it so much, she wouldn't walk home with me when I told her it was time to go. I had to carry her all the way home!! No joke. And even when we got to our building, she wouldn't walk in, so I had to carry her to our door! Ummm, when did she become such a diva?

We're at home now and she seems pretty exhausted, after only 10 min at the park, so it's probably a good thing I didn't let her run around with the other Frenchies. I'm not feeling so guilty that I kept her from her friends.

When Aaron gets home, I'll have him post some updated photos.

Frenchies and steamed cauliflower

Fiona likes steamed cauliflower!!! I'm going to try to make this her new snack. I knew I could get her to like vegetables!

Fiona is back...

We've been so bad about posting since Fiona started showing signs that she's defintely back to her old self.... sorry to those who have been trying to follow! It's only been about a month since Fiona had her surgery, which we sometimes forget. When she returned home, we swore that we wouldn't let her jump on the ottoman anymore or let her sleep on the bed, for fear that she would jump down in the middle of the night. A month after surgery, we've let her charm her way back to the bed and it seems impossible to keep her from jumping on the ottoman/green chair that we sit on every eveing. However, we have taught her to sit next to the bed if she wants up and when she wants down, she sits up in bed and looks at the door.

The green chair is another story. We sometimes forget that she doesn't understand when we tell her she can't jump on the ottoman because we don't want her to get hurt again, but we constantly find ourselves giving her that lecture... it's been quite a struggle! I'm guessing the only way to get her to not jump on and off the ottoman is to keep her off of it all together. I don't know if we're ready to have her sit by herself while we're in the comfy green chair yet. And in our defense, her doctor did say that it would probably be impossible to keep her off the ottoman since it's what she knows. Also, since the ottoman doesn't sit too high off the ground, it shouldn't cause any problems in the future as long as we keep the jumping on/off to a limit. So, when we are home, we let her sit with us, but when Fiona is home by herself, we flip the ottoman over and she lays on her nice new area rug (I bought a beautiful cream colored rug 1 week before Fiona's back issue - it wasn't really meant for her to play on).

Fiona has also lost her svelt figure since being home. When she was taking 4 types of meds 3 times a day, we were wrapping her pills in her favorite treats such as swiss cheese and turkey. She stopped her meds about two weeks ago, but we haven't gotten out of the habit of feeding her this stuff yet and her activity level has been limited. A combination of goodies and less exercise = Fiona the fatty! Luckily, we're able to increase the amount of time we can walk her by 5 minutes every week. So, she's up to 10 minute walks this week. Next week, we'll be able to walk her for 15 minutes. Eventually, we hope she'll be able to play at the park again. We swore that we wouldn't take her back to the doggy park because that is where she was the day we had to take her to the hospital, but we realize that just because she's had surgery, we can't keep her from the things that puppies love, like playing at the park with other dogs, or jumping on the chair to sit with you, or snuggling in bed at night. It wouldn't be fair to her... so we just have to get over being so scared that she's going to get hurt again that we keep her from doing anything. Plus she's a Frenchie, so she's bound to get into some sort of trouble again.

Goodies After Surgery

Fiona is going to have high expectations if we continue to spoil her...

Leah and Jamie came by yesterday to watch the US vs. Canada hockey gold medal game and they brought over treats for Fiona - it was very sweet of them. She got a stuffed horse, which she loves - she cannot be without it now, dragging it around in the kennel whenever she decides to change laying position and it's become her sleeping buddy. She also got a couple of squeaky toys, and her favorite... swiss cheese! Because Leah and Jamie were so good to her, Fiona got to come out to sit and visit with them for a bit. She couldn't jump on them like she normally does when they visit, but she was still excited to see them.

A good day

So, Irene and I bought a storage unit in our building, and today it was finally ours. We spent most of the morning pulling stuff out of the closet and from under the bed (or whatever nook and cranny we had stuff jammed into). Fiona spent the whole time watching us pile up the stuff in the living room. After taking a load down to the storage room I walked back into our place and Fiona was sitting up looking like she needed to go outside. I opened her gate, and for the past few days she has wobbled out, this time she shot right out. She went up to her leash and picked it up in her mouth. I have never seen her do this, so I was pretty surprised. She quickly went outside and did her business. Coming back inside Fiona had a spring in her step and was acting like she wanted to play. I quickly settled her down, but I was very happy that she was feeling so well to act like that. Today both of us noticed a huge improvement in her behavior and walking.

Another good sign is that Fiona is now starting to cry to get out of her cage. It is heartbreaking since we know she is getting board and wants to be around us, but she still has about 10 more days to go in the cage.

POST-OP: DAY 2, A Different Puppy?

Aaron and I were worried that Fiona would be a different pup after what she went through, but she definitely has the same spirit she did before her surgery. She is just as sassy, for example, she tries to run to the kitchen when she smells the turkey cooking, she barks like a tough girl when she hears people outside or sees them walking through the courtyard, and she tries to charm us with her puppy eyes when we are eating popcorn in the green chair, with the hopes that we will throw her a kernel or let her sit with us. And today, she finally gave me kisses on my nose when I stuck my head in her kennel... that was probably the best part of my day.

Anyway, we were worried that Fiona would be a different pup, but I think it turned out that Aaron and I became people we may not have thought we would/could be. The Vet told us that Fiona should return to a normal quality of life, but we've been treating her like first time parents do with a new-born baby. Aaron pulled out the sleeping bag and camping mattress and slept next to her kennel all night to keep an eye on her. It was a good thing he did though, because she threw up at 3am, but the Vet said it was probably because she wasn't used to her dog food, and that we should ween her back to it by feeding her bland foods (such as ground turkey and rice). During the day, I don't want to leave her for more than 1 hour at a time. Fortunately, I'm able to do this since I'm not working right now. Thiswhole thing with Fiona makes me wonder if things with Alcon didn't work out for a reason??? Eventually though, I'll get a new job, so its a good thing that Fiona sleeps most of the day anyway.

Regarding Fiona's progress today - she sleeps a lot, she rarely wants to leave her kennel (unless its for breakfast, dinner, or a snack), and her right leg still seems lame, compared to her left, but we are doing "physical therapy" with her daily, so she should become stronger. Her stitches still look good (no swelling or pussing), and she is able to give us kisses again!

Oh, and by the way, I think I mentioned getting pet insurance for your animals in my last blog... Aaron looked into this and we definitely plan to get it. It's really not that expensive considering the return, should your pet ever need to visit the vet, get an MRI, stay at the ER, or need meds. We were thinking about this (and I spoke with my friend Eve about this), and it makes sense to get pet insurance since animals are probably more prone to injuries than humans are. Especially if it's Fiona .... she HASSSS visited the doctor this year more times than both Aaron and I combined!

Back Home

Fiona was able to come home today. She looked even better than yesterday so we are very pleased with her progress. She has a total of 4 pain pills that she has to take for the next two weeks. She also must remain in her crate 24/7 except to go potty. Yes, Jaime she does get three mini-sessions of physical therapy each day to keep her hind legs in shape. Basically we just help her bend her legs and give her a quick massage. She is still very worn so all she wants to do is sleep. Irene also picked up an orthopedic doggy bed for her kennel that helps dogs with arthritis or who just had surgery and Fiona is loving it. We will try and post some pictures as well.

A & I

Frankenpuppy

Just a quick update tonight. Irene and I got a chance to visit Fiona around 7:00 pm tonight. She was able to stand, walk, and eat some food. She was still on pain meds so she was kinda loopy. Most of her back is shaved and she has 9 staples to close her incision. She was not quite herself, but you could tell she was happy to see us. I sat on the floor and she immediately walked up to me. I carefully picked her up and supported her ever so carefully. She fell asleep almost instantly and started to snore. Infact, she was so relaxed she had an accident when she was on my lap. I didn't even notice it till I passed her off to Irene. The Vet was surprised since she has been going outside to do her business. So, nothing to worry about, infact everyone was amazed how quickly she is recoverying. Hopefully we will get to bring her home tomorrow. We will find out in the morning.

Aaron

Disk Disease in French Bulldogs...

I wanted to start by thanking our family and friends for their support through a very rough weekend of not knowing whether or not Fiona would be able to walk again or would even make it out of the ER.

Today is the first day I'm blogging about our Frenchie, Princess Fiona, even though we have had her for over two years now. I wanted to start this blog for a couple of reasons. First, is to share what Aaron (my husband) and I went through this weekend with Fiona, as a way to support other frenchie owners who may have a frenchie who has IVDD (Invertabrae Disk Disease), or is suspect for IVDD. The second reason I'm blogging about Fiona is because after this weekend, I see Fiona as much more than just our family pet, she has impacted our lives in ways children do. For my friends who are reading this, I know that statement may sound crazy because I've never been known to LOVE animals, but Fiona has really changed my life.

For those who do not know our Fiona, she is vivacious, loves people, loves playing, will make anyone smile who sees her, and is able to win the hearts of anybody she meets. Because she is a fearless, solid 22 lb brick house, she sometimes doesn't know when she is being beat up, like when she slams into walls chasing after tennis balls, or picks fights with bigger dogs at the dog park. Personally, I think her 'toughness' was one of the reasons that brought her to the ER to begin with.

Aaron started noticing that something was wrong with her on Friday, after he returned from his sales meeting. He said she just didn't seem like herself, she was being more stand-offish, didn't want to sit next to him in her favorite green chair, wasn't excited about playing with her ball (her all time favorite toy), and refused a piece of swiss cheese, her favorite snack. Earlier that week, I had exercised her pretty hard (for frenchies, I guess they shouldn't have more than 20 minutes of rough play at a time - because they may overheat), for an hour at a time, so I excused her behavior as her just being tired from playing. By Saturday evening though, she would squeal (not cry, but SQUEAL), whenever we tried to pick her up. That is when we decided to take her to the animal ER in Northwest Portland. The first vet we saw thought Fiona may just be sore from all the playing we did earlier that week and prescribed pain meds and told us to return if she didn't improve within 5 days. The Vet had ruled out IVDD because she still had sensation in her feet and was able to walk on her own. So we brought Fiona home thinking she would be ok with some pain meds and rest.

The pain meds, however, didn't seem to work at all. We stayed up with her all night, while she just stood in one spot; she didn't want to sit or lay down. Finally, at 5am, after doing some online research about back pain in French bulldogs and after she squealed with pain and lost bladder control while trying to climb on our bed, we decided to take her back to the ER. From the time we drove from our home to the time Fiona was examined again (about 10 min), she wasn't able to stand using her hind legs and had lost complete control of her bladder (she peed on the Vet!). The Vet on shift said that she may be suffering from IVDD, where the fluid from the vertabral disk ruptures, hitting the spinal cord and hitting the nerves around it, causing her pain. If left untreated, there was the chance of paralysis, which could progress in as little as 24 hours. As you can imagine, we were pretty freaked out by this point. The oral pain pills we gave to Fiona earlier obviously wasn't enough to cease her pain, so they gave her an injection and referred us to a neurosurgeon in Clackamas (about 30 minutes outside of Portland).

There are very few Vet-Neurosurgeons in the Portland area... all of them were on vacation this weekend!!! So, we had to wait until Monday for him to examine her. But, the staff at the new ER took good care of Fiona, monitoring her every two hours for 24 hours, making sure she still had sensation in her hind paws. The vet had told us that after animals loose sensation in their paws or lose sensation of pain is when the danger of paralysis comes into play. Aaron and I were still very scared. I mentioned earlier that I have not been known to be an animal lover, however, I became the overbearing doggie mother at this point. I called the ER every two hours to check on Fiona's status to make sure she was ok, I wanted to be there right when visiting hours started through when it ended, etc. I never imagined myself as the 'crazy dog lady', but our little Princess Fiona has that power over people.

Anyway, 4 vets and 48 hours later, the neurosurgeon gave us a call on Monday morning to let us know that Fiona had improved - she was able to walk, had sensation in her hind legs, but however, when he rotated Fiona's back foot, she wasn't able to rotate it back to normal, indicating that her brain wasn't getting the signal that her foot was rotated. He mentioned that the first vet we took her to see should have rotated Fiona's feet to see if it would go back to normal, but because the Vet was new and inexperienced, that she mistakenly missed that. Be sure to ask your vet to rotate your dog's feet if you suspect they may have a back injury! Anyway, the vet suspected that something may be pushing against her spinal cord, but wouldn't know for sure without an MRI. He gave us a couple of options - 1: because she had shown improvement from the previous day, that cage confinement for a couple of weeks at home along with pain meds, could have positive results or 2: to go ahead with the MRI to get more information. The downside of the MRI was the cost. Aaron and I had resolved the day before that we would go ahead with the MRI regardless of cost so that we could have all the information we needed to prevent this from happening in the future. So, the Vet went ahead with the MRI and said he was glad he had done it because he found that she in fact had a ruptured disk, which didn't show up on the XRay alone. At this point, we were given 2 options again: 1 - cage confinement with pain meds and hope that the pain will cease - the downside to this was that this problem could reoccur, but may be more severe in the future; or 2: surgery. Again, the downside of surgery was the cost, but the upside was that the doctor would be able to see what was wrong and fix it. This Vet had done over 1,000 of these surgeries, so we were confident that he would be successful with it.

At 6 in the evening yesterday, the surgeon called to let us know that we made the right decision with surgery because Fiona's disk had actually ruptured into several pieces, some hiding under her spinal cord, which was undetectable on the MRI! This is what had been causing her pain. He also suspected that Fiona had ruptured the disk some time ago because the jelly-like fluid that usually comes out after a rupture had started to calcify.... the problem with having a tough girl with high pain tolerance! Not in the clear yet though! The vet said that the surgery went well, but we wouldn't know the outcome until the morning, where they could test her walk, etc. So, we get a call this morning, and she is as good as new! The doc said she is one of the most solid dogs he has ever worked with - it was tough cutting through her skin, her muscle and it took two drill bits to dril through her bone!!! That's our girl.

We are thankful that Fiona made it through this safely and that she will be able to lead a normal quality of life. From this, Aaron and I have come to appreciate that we can't take anything we care about for granted because it can be taken from you in a matter of minutes. We also learned that we're able to work as a great team, in support of each other, through something tough like this. And finally, there isn't a price you can place on something you consider to be a part of the family. I used to think that people who would spend thousands of dollars trying to save a cat or dog were out of their minds, but my view has become completely different becuase I now realize how much love an animal can give and how much love can be given back... and if you have the means, a price cannot be placed on that. Aaron jokes that my new car has four legs and her name is Fiona, but she is so much better than any car we could ever own.

We'll be visiting Fiona tonight, but won't get to take her home until tomorrow evening. We'll keep you posted on her progress and will post some photos of her as well.

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Some other tips for those of you who may have a dog with suspected back problems:

1. Don't be afraid to do your own research and question the Vets you are working with
2. If your dog is acting funny, only you will know this and not the Vet (they can only check for physical symptoms)
3. Get PET INSURANCE if you have a French Bulldog!!! Seriously!