Max Update

Just letting everyone know how Max is doing. Saturday he hurt his back again, this time by jumping off the couch. At least that's what I think. I didn't actually see what happened. Seeing that he was in pain I gave him a little baby aspirin, and that seemed to help. He was at least able to rest that night.

Sunday morning he was hobbling around, again in pain but able to eat, drink, and go outside and relieve himself. By noon, though, he was unable to move his hind legs. I medicated him the best I could, with aspirin for his pain and benadryl to calm him down (it works as a mild sedative in dogs), and Monday morning I took him to the vet. There, Max got a shot of steroids and tranquillizers, and I got prescription pills to dose him with at home. Once home he commenced resting again, zonked from the drugs, and spend the night in relative comfort.

I say relative because he's having trouble urinating on his own. I tried to "express his bladder" as they say, but I was squeezing in the wrong place. So today I had to take him back to the vet to learn how to do it right. The Doc had Max peeing like a racehorse in no time, and from the volume I'm sure max was in plenty of discomfort. One good sign is that once the Doc got him going, Max was able to assist in the process to some degree.

The Doc also wants me to flex Max's hind legs on a regular basis, which leads to another good sign: while I was doing so today Max resisted a little. I could feel it as I moved his legs back and forth. This all makes me more optimistic that Max will pull through this. He might end up needing one of those doggy wheelchairs, but that's far from the worst that could happen.