A Missy Moo update

So today Missy had her x-rays. We took a couple of her spine including her neck and tail. It showed that she has arthritis in her rear end which we knew. The more interesting thing, and what we were looking for, is that there are some odd spaces in her neck. One is a larger than normal gap between two neck vertebrae and right next to that is a v shaped space between two others that may account for the episodes if it is causing pinching of nerves or her spinal column. Or it could be a response to excessive pain caused by the gaps somehow. (I'll try to post pics of her x-rays this week.)

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We had to anesthetize her for the process which I always hate to do. Aside from the brachycephelic issues, she just takes forever to get back to normal afterwards and looks miserable during recovery. Today I got a bonus of her vomiting on my hand as well. (oh good times)

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For now we are going to put her on rimadyl which is a pain medication as well as an anti-inflammatory. We will see if this helps stop the episodes or if it changes them in any way. I also need to find out if chiropractic is an option since we have no idea how the gaps occurred or if they can be adjusted. Or maybe acupuncture for help with pain management. We might also send the x-rays out to a specialist for a second opinion. The problem is not having a normal frenchie spine as a comparison. They look like abnormal gaps to the doctor but could they be a normal view of a frenchie spine? Is there such a thing as normal abnormalities? Good question.

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To add insult to injury for Missy, yesterday while racing to get inside she fell between the house and one of the steps breaking one of her nails almost completely off. Of course this was on my lunch break so I had limited time to address it. It was bleeding so I had to slap a bandage on it and get back to work. (a classic Monday from hell BTW which is always fun) Thankfully I knew we could get it fixed at her appointment today. At least she had good timing! By this morning she was gimping around on only 3 legs. They removed the nail and applied a fresh bandage while she was under. She is not impressed with the intruder on her foot.

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One of the doctors came to the house after work the other day to check her because when she is at the hospital she gets so stressed. Her excessive panting makes it hard to hear her heart and she is tough to get normal reactions upon palpating her there to. Forget about seeing her walk normally. She shakes like a leaf all over. I have to say this helped us alot with an assessment. Dr. D got to see her being normal and managed to find a painful area so we knew where to look today. Sometimes the home turf is an important advantage. My hope now is that we can find what helps and keep her from being painful. There is nothing worse that seeing them hurt and feeling helpless to fix it.