One of the nice things about sharing my apple account with the boys is that I get to see things….what music Kevin buys, where his phone is, and what pictures Matthew takes (Cpher is on Mom’s account…).
All of these pictures are taken since graduation weekend and pretty indicative of how often that subject shows up in a picture…about once a week.
Heading a ball!
Wiley’s sharp decline into a bad way has been, well, precipitous. Not less than 3 weeks ago all was well….this picture is probably six weeks back. Never the world’s most active dog, Wiley has enjoyed a renaissance of car rides this year that has been unparalleled in the last eight years of his life….almost daily trips in the morning and afterschool to drop off and pick up Christopher from school. And he has loved every minute of it and even the slightest hint of a car key jingle in the morning will send him off to the side of the car to see if the door will open to take him away.
Wiley’s placement in this photo is incidental….but now just the sight of him standing confidently on his back legs is, well, something we desperately hope we see again. But day by day this seems less likely. So, what’s happened?
A few weeks back Wiley developed a pronounced limp….he could still get around, he was sometimes less than graceful jumping into the car or up onto the couch, but, he was limping. There were some moments where he was his normal self and would rocket out of the house with Holly chasing god knows what scent in the backyard….so, we weren’t all that concerned at first. The limp persisted, and we finally made the call to the vet to go in and see what was up. They took an x-ray, and while there was a lesion on his spine in the x-ray, the big takeaway seemed to be that he had signs of arthritis and let’s try some non-steroid inflammation/pain drugs.
I know this picture is on a US World Cup Match Day….Matthew is sporting his US jersey.
And he was better for a day or so, or, improving at least….and then through the July 4th weekend it just got worse and worse. Barely moving….would struggle to get up onto all four legs and very reluctantly would come out to eat and drink.
So vet visit #2 was last Monday. Very obviously is not arthritis….is most likely that lesion, which is in a very bad spot, where all the nerve endings for both legs come together (I have been continually befuddled trying to explain which leg is the problem….because it seems like different ones at different times. This would explain that). Solutions here are limited….surgery, but, the minimum cost on that is $3k and that’s not happening. Dump the non-steroid, move to a full-on steroid to help with inflammation, move to a full-on pain pill and get a heavy-duty antibiotic since he’s running a big fever as well.
This picture was sent to Matthew at camp on Sunday night…
Improvement since the trip to the vet has been minimal; Kevin and I have had to help pick him up to get him on all four feet at times A big milestone after the vet visit; could Wiley poop Monday afternoon (because apparently he hadn’t been going because he couldn’t bear down on those back legs). He did go Monday….and Tuesday….but today he didn’t, and it is not a good sign when the dog isn’t achieving the lowest of benchmarks. He is eating, and drinking, but, there is next to no movement without a whole lot of encouragement, and none of that movement is without a limp. Started on two pain pills (he gets them every six hours), tried to dial it back to one every six hours but his movements have gotten worse….so we are back at two as of tonight.
At the vet Monday…..
So what’s next? A whole lot of hoping……hoping the antibiotics and steroids have an effect soon and Wiley walks better….hope that he can at least achieve something close to normal (eat, drink, sleep, pee, poop) and accept that he is going to be more sedentary. And that seems to be the absolute best case. The worst case, sadly, seems to be approaching closer with every day that things don’t improve even a little bit. Kevin and Cpher are fully aware of what is going on; we have not mentioned this to Matthew since he is away at camp but he will get a full and complete update tomorrow night.
