Brody

Brody has been having a hard time walking for the last month or so (even more so than usual with her very bad back legs). Saturday night it got so bad she was dragging her legs behind her with her back feet resting the weight on her knuckles. By Sunday morning, she couldn't walk at all. She couldn't stand to go to the bathroom so we had to hold her up and Brad was having to carry her from place to place.

Sunday afternoon we took her to the animal hospital who did her reconstructive knee surgery when she was 2. The vet did some poking and testing and determined that Brody probably has an inflamed disk in her spine pushing against her spinal column. The pressure on her spine is cutting off feeling to her back legs so she actually doesn't even know where her feet are. That's why she's 'knuckling' when she walks. The pressure in her spine is causing her a lot of pain - so much so that she's shaking and groaning a lot.

He basically told her that the only way to fix the problem would be to do back surgery and he said with her being 11 1/2, that's not the greatest solution. He told us that she may not last much longer. He told us that we wouldn't be wrong to put her to sleep yesterday. We are not ready for that step and he gave us another option to manage her pain and try to get the swelling to go down in her back by using a steroid. Brad is working from home this week to give nursing care to Brody and give her pain meds, muscle relaxers and a steroid starting on Wednesday.

This has been a really hard process to go through because it doesn't seem right for us to choose when Brody is going to die, but at the same time, she really is in a lot of pain and it's not going to get better. The vet said that even if the inflamation does go down in her spine, it will be a chronic problem that won't go away. Brody is such a tough chic that it's hard to know when she's in pain. But her shaking and shivering is new. . . she's at a whole new level of pain. For a dog who's hiked through snow with no knee ligaments for 9 years, that's saying a lot.

Anyway, it sounds strange but we'd appreciate your prayers for comfort for Brody. We'd also appreciate your prayers for us since this is such a sad and painful process to go through. We need wisdom to be able to do the right thing for Brody too. Brody is such a great dog. . . whew. . . Thanks for your prayers.