Lily's Cervical Problem

Life can be so damn difficult sometimes! When someone you love is hurting it punches you right in the stomach.

You see, on September 2, 2011 Lily (our Doxie) started to exhibit signs of a neck problem. She was in horrible pain and her neck was all hunched up because of it. After numerous trips to her Vet and to the emergency clinic, it was determined that she had a serious problem. I immediately got her crate out of the basement and started (again) "crate training 101" with her. As much as she hated being in there, it was for her own good.

It turned out that our local Neurologist had just left for a month on vacation. Dr. M., our Vet told us to contact Cornell Companion Animal Hospital in Ithaca, NY and get her in there as soon as we could. In the meantime we had to give Lily a lot of medicine in order to keep her as comfortable as possible.

It was a few miserable weeks for all of us. Lily was in so much pain. The medicine's would work for a few hours, then she would have break-through pain. We tried this, we tried that to no avail. She would shake, cry out loud, whimper and hunch her head into her shoulders. Then came the bloody poop from one of the med's. At this point, we are helpless and it really sucks!

I can't say thank you enough to Lily's local Veterinarian's and the totally awesome staff that they employee. You are everyday hero's to us. You were always there to answer my calls and questions and got us right in when needed. May the kindness and compassion that you showed to us, come back to you tenfold!

The day finally came for her visit with the Neurologist at Cornell. We packed up the van and headed out on the road early in the morning. Lily did excellent on the 2 hour ride thanks to all of the pain killers.

On the ride to Cornell

We arrived an hour before our appointment time and were very thankful that they allowed us to check in early. I brought a gurney out to the parking lot so that we could wheel Lily (in her crate) into the reception area. By the time Rolf lifted her out of the van and loaded her on the gurney, the Neurologist and her assistant were greeting us in the parking lot.

They took us right to an exam room. After meeting with the Neurologist, Dr. Cameron and her assistant Marina for over an hour, we decided to go ahead with the suggested MRI so that they could pin point the exact problem. Because the MRI would be done that day but late in the afternoon, Rolf and I checked into a hotel. That was one of the longest afternoons we've had in a long, long time. We found a beautiful park in Ithaca on a canal where we decided to wait for the news. It was called the Ithaca's Children's Garden. The flowers were all in bloom, little play house's all around ~ A place filled with whimsy! Truly a place that Lily would love to walk around. Rolf and I sat there for hours. We prayed, we talked about the weather, we watched the birds and beautiful butterflies, we remembered the day we brought Lily home and we prayed some more.

The call finally came from Dr. Cameron. It was not the news we had hoped for. Lily had a ruptured disc in her neck. It was between C2 and C3 right up next to her brain. It was something that needed to be operated on immediately in order to avoid paralysis. It was our worst nightmare. We now had to put our faith in God and in Dr. Cameron.