I wrote a while ago about a canine patient who came to me to be fitted for a wheelchair for paralysis who turned out not to be paralysis at all, but rather immobilizing pain. Recently, I had the privilege of actually providing two canine patients with the gift of mobility — each with his own story, and each with different reasons for needing an assistive device.
Bailey is developing progressive degenerative myelopathy. He is, very slowly and over time, losing the connections between his nerves and muscles. Already he has lost his ability to take the walks he so enjoyed with his owner. He started out as a pain patient, and his pain is now very well-managed. The rest of him is in pretty good shape, so losing his mobility was heartbreaking. His owner, when I brought up the idea of putting him into a walking wheelchair, was convinced that he would be devastated by the concept, and dismissed the idea out of hand.
Fortunately, his disease has progressed slowly enough to give her time to re-think her position. Bailey came in for a pain assessment (which revealed a terrific comfort level), and we had another opportunity to discuss fitting him for a walking wheelchair from K-9 Carts West®. I was so grateful to hear Bailey’s mom say that she was ready to see how he would do with this assistive device. You can see from his picture that he is a very serious-looking fellow! (You may also notice his cleft-lip. He had a cleft palate at birth that was repaired while he was still young. As a result, he has a very distinctive “look”.)
We fitted the chair to him, strapped it on, and then held our breath as he took his first few steps. He was not the least bit stressed by the “chariot” that kept following him no matter how far he walked! He walked around the hospital, around the parking lot outside the hospital, and then walked right up to the family SUV for the trip home. I have asked his mom for photos and videos to keep us posted about his progress.
Unlike Bailey, who will need his walking wheelchair for the rest of his life, we hope that Jessie will only need his for a while. Last week Jessie had an explosive rupture of an intervertebral disc that paralyzed him overnight. He had surgery the next day, which involved removing large amounts of disc material from his spinal canal. While his deep pain sensation returned the next day, Jessie is experiencing a delayed return of his remaining nervous system function. He cannot yet walk, and is in fact not even moving his legs on his own.
Now that we have adequately controlled his post-operative pain and have him used to the idea of intermittent urinary catheters to keep his bladder empty, we want to restore his mobility to allow him the mental “boost” that comes from engaging in the usual activities of daily living. He lives with other dogs on horse property, and part of his routine is walking out to the barn with his mom for meals. He’s a bit of a “momma’s boy” so we were not sure how he would react to having a walker strapped to his torso. As has been our universal experience, we fitted the cart, placed him in it, and he happily took a tour of the hospital with next to no prompting. You can see that the securing strap rests on his back just ahead of the start of his surgical incision. He went home with some easy physiotherapy exercises his mom will perform on him between formal physiotherapy sessions we will conduct here at the practice. As soon as he is moving his legs on his own, we will leverage the underwater treadmill to help him retrain his nervous system and muscles. And should he never regain full function, he will be able to live a pretty darned normal lifestyle!
The very best part of these two stories is the fact that the two K-9 Carts® involved were both built for and first used by two completely different patients of my practice. When those two dogs passed on, their owners very generously donated the carts to my practice — “paying it forward” in a way — so that some other families’ dogs would benefit. Who could have predicted that I would restore both carts to service in one day! What a great job I have!
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