Vet Hospital

We took Stanley back to the vet today, and his condition had deteriorated -- he was losing sensation in his back legs. The vet said we needed to take him to the emergency clinic at the vet school, because if the deterioration progressed further, the prognosis was very poor. (I knew it was going to be bad news by the tone in his voice -- both people and animal doctors get this same extra-calm voice when they're about to tell you something awful.)

So Mike took him there and they got him right in, but then it took several hours for them to do the diagnostic stuff that they needed to do. (They gave Stanley pain medication so that he was mostly comfortable and sleeping, though.) They do think that it is a slipped or ruptured disc, so he is scheduled for surgery on Monday to relieve the spinal compression. His condition seemed to be holding steady, but if they see signs that he's worsening, they would take him to surgery right away.

The surgery has a 90% success rate. (When I heard that, I thought, hmm, interesting, that's the same as the survival rate for a 27-week preemie, but then I double checked in the Preemie book and the survival odds for a 27-weeker are actually lower than that. So, moving on...)

He'll have to stay in the hospital for a few days to recover after the surgery, and then there's also a couple of weeks of recuperation at home with limited activity, etc. Poor little guy.

The dog hospital process is remarkably similar to people hospital -- you still have to be an advocate for your patient. (But at least we don't have to be there 24/7 like we did after James's surgery! In fact, although we're allowed to visit Stanley tomorrow, they discouraged us from doing it -- it would just get him wound up and upset when we had to leave. I think their plan is to keep him pretty much sedated all day, anyhow.) Mike and I both have the strong temptation to call and check in on him just like we did with the boys when they were in the NICU, but the vet hospital didn't seem to encourage that, either.

It's awful that he has to have surgery, but we're glad it's an option -- when we left the regular vet's office, we weren't sure whether the emergency vet would have even worse news for us.