Journal

My 3 year old dog, who was my absolute best friend and companion had to be euthanized yesterday after a sudden and totally unexpected paralysis. 

Saturday night at 10 pm. we were playing ball in the house like we do every night.  He stopped playing and walked to the kitchen door and sat in front of it as if he needed to go out to go to the bathroom.  I got up to let him out and he would not get up.  I nudged him with my foot and he began to cry out loud and have almost seizure like behavior.  I reached down and grabbed him and he could not move any part of his body from his front shoulders back - he was half paralyzed.

Kirby was a 130 pound South African Boerboel so me with a spinal cord injury and broken back could NOT pick him up.  In a panic I took the largest blanket I had and wrapped him in it and dragged him out the house, down the stairs and to my car.  My daughter helped me get him into the back seat.

I rushed him to the emergency clinic.  They came out and took him out of the car on a stretcher and brought him inside.  They confirmed that he in fact was paralyzed in his back side but did not have the technology needed to perform a diagnosis as to why.

They told me I had to take Kirby to Tufts University in Boston Mass for a Mylogram and MRI.  They put him in the car for me and I drove the 2.5 hours to Boston - we arrived at 2 a.m. Sunday Morning.

At 4 a.m. the vet finally came out and said that the tests showed kirby had suffered an FCE or Fibrocartilaginous Embolism in his spinal cord.  This is something that happens in dogs where a small part of bone or disc brakes off, travels down the spinal cord and becomes lodged and blocks all blood flow to the second half of the body.  It happens suddenly, there is no known cause and is not treatable by any type of surgery.  By the time the symptoms show - the damage is permanent.

The outcome was that he would never be able to use his back legs again and never be able to control his bladder or bowels again.  He would be a 130 pound dog unable to walk who would need to be turned over every hour and need to have his catheter and coloscopy bag changed every 4 hours.  Obviously, there was no way I could physically or financially care for him so I had to make the decision to euthanize him.  As I walked away, he just stared at me and cried as if to say please dont leave me, i'm scared and in pain.  It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. 

The entire time we were driving to boston I kept tellling him over and over it was going to be ok and I would do anything humanly possible to save him at any expense and sadly enough, he had a condition that was not able to be fixed.

I feel totally lost and devastated.  Kirby was the one thing that made me feel safe.  He was incredbily gentle and loyal but at the same time was the best watch dog I've ever known.  He picked things up for me when I dropped them, layed beside me when I was in pain.  Let me lean on him to walk when I could not move well.  He was my daily support and now he's gone.

The total vet bill came to over $5,000.00 for which I wrote a bad check that has already bounced.  They required payment before they would do the mylogram or MRI and there was no way I was going to let money stop me - so I made the choice to write a bad check.

I hurt my back quite bad dragging him to the car - not sure what the damage is there.

The end result is I had to make the choice to allow my best friend in the world to be put to sleep, I've injured my back, wrote a bad check in the amount that counts as a felony that I cant cover, i've lost the dog that helps me all day, lost my feeling of security and I feel totally devastated.

All i've been doing is crying and vomitting.  I had one of the worse migraines i've ever had.  I just dont know how to go on.  10 months ago I had to put my other dog down after liver failure and 11 months ago, my 5 year old cat died in my arms after a brain tumor.

I've become disabled and lost 3 pets all in the last 12 months.  Its just more than I can take.

I'm surviving, but not living.  I feel as though I’m in my own personal hell and nobody can relate.  Yes, I know, I am one of millions and millions who are suffering, that is why I call this MY personal hell, we all have our own.  Please don’t say "I understand".  It's my belief that no one can understand anyone else’s pain.  It’s just not possible. 

My back pain worsens.  The pro-disc artificial disc replacement surgery I had last August was a complete failure. I’m in more pain now than I’ve ever imagined in my life.  I've learned that because of the arthritis and degeneration on the vertebrae it was installed between, the surgery should have never been done on me - I was not a candidate.  Yes, I know - I know - sue the doctor.  Well, that's not going to do a damn thing for the pain I’m in, nor is it going to pay the mortgage this month. Not only did the surgery worsen my back pain, but it re-aggravated my spinal cord injury and I’m in constant nerve pain.  The best way I can describe it is that it feels like there are thousands of pieces of broken glass being crushed into my legs and the bottoms of my feet at all times.  I've tried ALL the nerve pain medications.  Yes, its official - my neurologist declared there are "NO" meds I haven't tried.  None have worked to relieve the pain and there is nothing, even experimental, left for me to try.  And yes, I’ve used all the unconventional eastern world treatments as well.  I cut my spinal cord and there are broken bone pieces still in it, we are not talking mild nerve damage. My doctor considered a spinal cord stimulator, but given the extensive family history of heart disease and the fact that I already have beginning signs of it, I cannot have one put in, because you CANNOT be defibrillated during a heart attack if you have a spinal cord stimulator. 

I've developed a resistance to pain meds in that each and every type of them now triggers a migraine.  I have to decide which I want, horrible back pain or a migraine.  If I dont take my pain medication, my back pain is beyond anything that can be described and if I take it, I have a migraine within an hour.  I've tried every narcotic, opiate, patch, nerve block, root block, pain clinic, chiropractor out there.  Nothing helps with my back pain except narcotics and narcotics trigger migraines.

Worse yet is that my "chronic” migraines have evolved to "daily intractable migraines".  Daily - yes, I get a migraine headache each and every day.  I vomit, lie on the floor holding my head and at times hide in the closet to get away from light and sound.  Intractable means they are not responding to any type of treatment.  Like my nerve pain, I've reached the end of the list on migraine meds.  I've tried every prescription, every herb, supplement, meditation, relaxation, acupuncture, diet changes, hypnosis, prescriptions, opiates, morphine - my headaches do not respond. 

The latest attempt to reduce the number of migraines was another try at Topamax, not only did it have disastrous side effects, but it triggered flash back memories of sexual abuse that took place when I was a child.  Memories I buried years ago and now its as if I’m there again, so my PTSD is at an all time high. As a result of all this, I’ve become very depressed.  I've been diagnosed with major depressive disorder.  I cant take any anti depressants because anti depressants cannot be taken with triptans, the class of drug one of my migraine meds are in, or it can cause a potentially fatal condition known as serotonin syndrome. My neurologist referred me to a headache center in New York, one of three in the world of its kind that deal with patients who have headaches as severe as mine and after reviewing my records, history and previously tried treatments, they decided my case is too severe for them, so they referred me to an inpatient hospital in Michigan that my insurance does not cover.

I used to tell people that I go to my neurologist’s office in tears, well I still do but now he's in tears with me because he feels so bad about not being able to help me. The increased nerve pain has aggravated the reflex sympathetic dystrophy of my foot and its getting very hard to put any pressure at all on it.  I cant take much more than a few steps without being in tears.  I'm having more panic attacks than I’ve ever had in my life and my insomnia has worsened.  I used to be able to sleep 2 to 3 hours a night and was thrilled with that.  Now its only 1 to 1.5 hours a night.  I'm in far too much pain to get to sleep and yes, I've tried multiple sleep medications and alternative remedies.  If I take narcotics to calm my back pain, it triggers a migraine.  So I either have to stay awake with a migraine or indescribable back pain. I want to say I lie awake and cry, but I don’t.  And that scares me.  I've become numb to emotions. I don’t cry, I don’t laugh, and I don’t feel anything but physical pain.  I love my children and for them, I will survive. And in final I will say – that our *&^%$@! Government has decided that all this does NOT make me disabled and they expect me to work!