Dec 20: Mocha goes to the emergency room and is stabilized after being hit by a car
Dec 21: Mocha is tranferred to surgery and receives 8 pins in her leg, 6 staples on her side and her lower law is wired together.
Dec 22 Mocha comes home, but has to be carried out to pee and poo, and is on a bunch of pills.
Jan 4 Mocha is recovering well and she gets her bandage off her leg. Her jaw surgery may not hold so she may still lose her lower canine but the vet decides to wait to see if it may still take. She is sore but improving. Her pins require daily cleaning and she is still on a pain pill
Jan 10 Mocha looks extra tired and can't get up. She is shivering. We carry her out to pee. She curls up in the sun and goes to sleep. The next thing we know she is sitting up, panting and feverish. She can't move. We take her to the vet immediately. She is diagnosed with a back injury.
Jan 11 After a bunch of procedures it is determined that surgery is not the best option. She has a subluxation/collapsed disc. She is put under observation at the ICU for the weekend.
Jan 12 Mocha is on morphine and groggy but eats wet food from our hands and whines when we leave. SHe is given a prognosis of an 80% success rate is she is kenneled for 10 weeks. We will have to express her urine from her kennel for awhile.
Jan 14 Mocha comes home on horse tranquilizers. It sucks. She is a zombie. We wait for them to wear off. She cannot hold her head up.
Jan 16 The tranquilizers have worn off. She is perking up and eating and drinking. We have to pick her up to take her outside. She cannot stand up but she is in better spirits. Her ribs are very crunchy.
Jan 17 She put a little weight on her back legs today. She is also being defiant. That is a good sign that she is coming back into herself
February: Mocha is acting tired, she is in more pain and has a low grade fever. We take her in and a urinary tract infection is discovered. She also seems to have a lot of pain around her injury at the spine
Mid-February Mocha is diagnosed with a potential MRSA infection in her spine and urinary tract. Her front leg isn't healing due to the extended prednisone use and she is losing sensation in her back leg
Late Feb, a last ditch effort is made to save mocha with a very risky spinal surgery. She is given a 30% prognosis of making it.. She makes it through surgery but we aren't sure if the antibiotic we are giving her is going to even touch the infection. She comes home looking like Frankenstein.
March Mocha is doing fairly well. She is better but still in a lot of pain and paralyzed in the back legs. She requires around the clock care. We are pretty exhausted at this point. She is getting a little bit of pain sensation in her legs and tail but unable to move them.
April. Mocha is turning around. It turned out a UTI infection was complicating the situation. We treated her with more yucky antibiotics and her spirits greatly changed. She began to get a little perkier. SHe is now paralyzed but the pain is beginning to subside. She receives acupuncture and begins to sleep through the night. We find a used wheelchair on craigslist and it comes in the mail. She DOES NOT like it.
Late April. Mocha barks at another dog for the first time in 4 months, then for the first time in 2 months she wags her tail!!! She starts to wag more and more. She walk herself with sling support 1/4 of a mile.She begins rehab!
May Mocha is now in the midst of 3X a week rehab donated by the surgery department of Central Texas Veterinary Specialty Hospital. She is practicing on her newly healed front paw, getting strength back in her front end. In, fact she scooched herself Eddie Murphy Trading Spaces style to her dog Bowl one morning before we were awake to get water.
May 4 Mocha learns to use her wheelchair thanx to the rehab department. She tools around for 20 monutes with her tail wagging. She is off most of her meds and supplements.
Summer: Mocha is has her ups and downs. Her leg that was broken in 6 places is sore a lot but she is tooling around quite well on her chair. Some days are better than others. Overall, her spirit is coming back a little more everyday. Its a different life but we are very happy to have her with us.