Surgery!

Overnight, neither one of us had very much sleep.... 

We got up pretty early to collect Penny from the vet clinic, where she had rested well, and was in as good shape as she could be if we decided on surgery that day.  The overnight visit was $275- for the medication, drip, and overnight stay.  They had put her into a dog crate for us to borrow, and off we drove to the surgeons in Parramatta... we thought it may take about 2 hours to get there, and our appointment was at 10:30.   I had texted a friend of mine who used to be a vet-nurse and asked her if she had ever heard of Dr. David Lidbetter, and she said she had, only good things, so that was nice news..... Both my husband (I will use the moniker "K" from now on) and I had taken the day off work, and I told my boss I may not be in the whole week.   It was Tuesday.  

On the drive down we got a list of questions together.  What would the surgery do for Penny? What are her chances of walking again?  Would she be in pain after the surgery?  What was the expected recovery time? What if any are the "hidden costs" of the surgery?  How were we going to pay for it?  Fortunately, Kane had been saving up for a projector, so we were only about $1000 short of the quote of $4500 our vet had given us, I thought I could get an advance from work, or maybe borrow it from someone....All our credit cards were pretty close to maxed out, but there may be a couple hundred available.   We talked about the reality of having a post-op doggie, and how distressing it was to see her in pain.  As hard as it was, we did discuss the possibility of needing to have her put down, and what would we do with the body?  I wanted to bring her home and put her in the garden.  Kane said we couldn't really decide what to do until we talked to the surgeon, and got more information on her condition. 

On arrival we are amazed at how nice the place is... super modern, clean, airy and yet welcoming.  We were a bit early, but didn't have long to wait.  We were ushered into the consultation room, where the walls are covered with diplomas from all over the world.  Australian Vet Surgeon, European, American, England- we got the feeling we were in good hands.  There were thank you cards on the desk, which was nice, some with pictures of dogs in them.

Dr. David Lidbetter walks in, and the 1st impression is that he is so young.  Tall, dark and handsome, with a nice genuine smile, and warm handshake.  We took Penny out of the crate and he had a look at her.  Our local vet had emailed him all her information up to and including what medication she had that morning, so he was all up to date on her current situation.  Once again, our local vet had done us a great service in looking after us and preparing us for this consultation. 

We started talking about what our options were, and how we proceed.  So, 1st off by looking at Penny and doing what they call a Deep Pain Test (where he pinched her toe pretty hard to see if there is a pain reaction -I winced just watching...) , he was 95% sure it was a disc rupture.  What they do is they sedate her and take a scan of her back to confirm the diagnosis and to get an exact locale.  Then, he goes in and removes most, but not all of the ruptured disc to relieve pressure on the spine and sews her up.  

He goes onto tell us, that 1 in 5 dachshunds will suffer from ruptured disc and 1 in 20 will have a second, third, fourth incident.  It usually occurs in animals between the ages of 3-8yrs.
What happens is the discs calcify over time and loose their elasticity and then they burst, putting pressure on the spinal cord and causing nerve damage.   

(there is a lot of information and diagrams that explain it much better than I do at 
http://www.dodgerslist.com/index.htm)

Dr. David  sees about 1 dachshund a week in his surgery.  He gave Penny a 50/50 chance of walking again, and told us we were looking at a 8-12 week recovery period where Penny would need to be kept in a small space, which could be a crate, a baby play pen or a part of the room blocked off.   She would be incontinent and that may, or may not improve when she regains function of her back legs.  So we would need puppy pee pads, polar fleece and face washers etc on hand.  Usually bladder control and leg control come back together.  There were some exercises  for us to do with her, and we would need to look out for bed-sores, and keep her clean and dry.  He said that due to the long weekend, our costs were lower than usual, as he had a few animals in for surgery, so he could keep the costs down a bit for us.  If she was un-able to go home with us on Thursday (due to complications ) the costs would go up substantially, as Friday was a public holiday and he would have to keep the surgery open with a vet nurse on duty just for her.  The quote was $4800 including a blood test.  After the surgery, and the pain of the surgery itself was finished, he said there was only a very slight chance that Penny would still be in pain.  He said he had only had 2 dogs that had chronic post-operative pain.  Pretty much we had 2 options- go ahead with surgery or have her put to sleep.  David gave us some time to discuss the options and left the room.  

Gosh, it was a bit difficult... we looked at Penny in so much pain, and looked at each other.  I was waiting for Kane to say something, and I think he was waiting for me.  Then he said :"I think we need to do everything we can to save her"  I burst into tears of course, and I agreed. We briefly discussed how hard it was going to be to keep Penny calm and secured for 8-12 weeks, but both of us agreed we could do it.   We second guessed our selves for a few minutes like "how are we going to scrape the money together" "is it worth it"  "is it the best thing for Penny"  "are we just being selfish, because we can't let her go?".  

When Dr. David came back, we said that yes, we would go ahead with the surgery.  So we took Penny into the back of the surgery and settled her into her pen. (although there was nothing "settled" about her, the pain medication was wearing off and she had started star gazing again, during the time we were in consultation.)  We got to walk by the operating theatre, and it looked really good..... glistening instruments all laid out in packets, video monitors, trolleys etc Kane and I looked at each other and went "wow"  I thought it was better appointed than human operating theatres....   

Dr. David said he would call us when Penny was out of surgery.  

We went and paid a $1000 deposit, and left our little pup there.... fingers crossed she would come out ok. .....

On the way home we discussed what we would need, and how nice Dr. David was...he answered all our questions, quite fully, and we were not made to feel rushed or dumb for asking them, and how impressed we were with all his diplomas.  We left feeling that Penny had a good chance of recovery and that she was seriously in the best hands possible.