How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?

I haven't blogged in ages about my dogs because I have been too busy caring for them. My old dobie, Deon passed away last month after a long illness and how do you mend a broken heart? It has now been over 6 weeks and I still really miss him and become tearful when thinking of him. His remains are home with us, but it really doesn't make it any easier. He was a very special guy and probably because I cared for his medical needs to such an extent, this was harder on me. I have lost three other dogs over the past 10 years, but outside of the first one, this was the hardest. I still have two wonderful dogs with me, and I treasure them every single day.

Deon broke his femur last December playing with baby sister Diva in the backyard on a wet and drippy morning. It was a horrible break that required surgery with pins and a high-tech implant to stablize the bone. The only problem was he was big and goofy and never laid down but dropped down. This caused the pins in his leg to loosen and move until they were causing him an incredible amount of pain. Here comes surgery number 2. By the way, he was diagnosed with end stage renal failure during his first hospitalization prior to surgery. So when he came home he was on a special diet, medication, bottled water, etc. Surgery number 2 was really hard on him, but he pulled through but on his recheck appointments the bone just was not healing properly. We at first thought this was because of the kidney disease, but as time passed it became apparent that he was having like an allergic reaction to the high-tech implant. He finally had a third surgery to remove the implant and put an external skeletal fixator (ESF) in place. This is a large steel bar on the outside of the leg with screws that go into the bone to hold everything in place. It is gross since body fluids drain out of the screw holes and it must be thoroughly cleaned daily.

He was such a sweetie pie, he endured all of this pain and discomfort and was always his sweet self. By the time of his third surgery it was obvious that his overall health was in decline. We loved him and took care of him and then one day he was so sick he could barely lift his head. It was early July and I took him back to the hospital not sure if this was now the time or what. He was very unresponsive and so I called my husband and son to come and say goodbye. While I waited for their arrival - good old Deon got like a second wind and by the time they arrived, he was alert, his eyes were clear and focused and he looked like himself. When the vet returned to the room, she couldn't even believe the transformation. It was decided that he might just have a urinary tract infection which is very treatable and that he needed fluids since we appeared dehydrated. We agreed to let him spend the night in the hospital and brought him home the next day and he looked like HELL! All day long I thought we had just postponed the inevitable and just made him miserable. By the next morning he was back to his bright eyed self and I started giving him a liter of lactated ringers every day to keep him hydrated, along with his usual mixture of medicines. By this time, he didn't have any appetite for dog food, so I would buy chicken or inexpensive beef roasts, boil them down and add rice or barley and then puree them with water. He would not eat on his own so I would sit with him while he had his sub-q fluids going into him, twice a day this is how we lived. He would also eat vanilla yogurt, and some days he would put down almost a quart of yogurt. He loved the cool smooth yogurt sliding down his throat. Some days he would go for little walks, but he didn't have much stamina and would find a cool place a drop to rest.

We had a trip planned the end of July and we decided we would just take him with us. We had tickets to the US Men's National Basketball Team playing in Las Vegas before they left for the Olympics. So Auto Club was very helpful in locating a hotel that would take a 95 pound doberman. We stayed at the Loew's Lake Las Vegas and they are great! He loved to go to In 'N Out for cheesburgers or El Pollo Loco for chichen thighs. July turned into August and he would have good days and not-so-good days, but just when we would think that it was his time, he would wag his little docked tail and his eyes would be bright and focused and I just knew that until he couldn't respond I could not end his life. I spoke with his doctor on numerous occasions and he would tell us that with chronic advanced kidney disease - they usually needed help and would not just die on their own.

August turned into September and on the morning of September 3rd, he just didn't have his usual appetite for yogurt and isolated himself throughout the day. By mid afternoon, it was obvious that he wasn't feeling well, so my son helped me bring him in the house and Deon just dropped on the kitchen floor and would not move. We made him comfortable and I tried extra fluids, more pain meds, etc. and he would just lay there drooling. By dinner time we thought that this would be his last night with us and then it became apparent that we would need to get him to the hospital that night. My son said his good byes and my husband and I decided that after he got to bed we would take him to the hospital. I went up to say good night and my husband went to shower and when we came back down to the kitchen, Deon had passed away.

He had such a sweet soul and was totally unselfish. His baby sister, Diva sat watch that last day like she did every day he was not feeling well. We all miss him and his passing has left a big hole in our lives. Losing a loved pet is never easy, but this one was particularly tough! We love you Deon and you will remain in our hearts forever!

How To Heal a Broken Leg

Wow! What a journey we have been having trying to get Deon's left femur to heal along with his psyche. Three days shy of his 8 week post surgery we discovered on a routine x-ray that the pin in his leg was backing out which caused one of the rods next to his femur to slip up - putting pressure on his siatic nerve. He had been so miserable for the preceeding week, I thought that he had lost the will to live. This is what makes trying to communicate with your pet so very difficult. He couldn't tell me that his leg was killing him and to get him to the doctor. Poor guy! Well last weekend he had another surgery to remove the pin and replace it with a screw as well as removing both of the rods in his leg. So 8 weeks post-op and we are back to square one. Since his leg is pulling all of his strength and energy to heal - his kidneys are remaining status quo (which is not a good thing). Having bad kidneys totally restricts the types of medications he can be on for pain. The only available pain meds to him are a synthethic based morphine derivative. This causes him to be nuts! He moans and complains nonstop - in particular all night long which means one of us does not get much sleep. This time the doctor also gave him some valium which has helped some. Try having a life when you dog needs a variety of medications at least 6 times per day. Gosh do we love him.

He still prefers to not to use his broken leg (the good news is that the bone is basically healed) so he looks like a giant rabbit hopping around. We have a long hard battle with physical therapy and I hope that at his follow up appointment Monday, we get the go ahead. Although his leg has lost most muscle tone and strength - he can get around if he wants to. I think half of the physical therapy will be healing his head while the other is to gain strength and functional use of his leg again. He is such a sweetie - but at times my life is only about caring for dogs.

My baby Diva will have her 2nd birthday next month and is doing very well in finally starting to mature. She has not eaten any furniture is the past few months. We have been walking about 22 miles per week and then coming home to get our special needs - Avalanche and doing another mile or so per day. What a family, but I couldn't imagine life without them!

Old Guys Shouldn't Play With Teenagers

I haven't blogged much lately about my dogs, since we were plugging away with everything status quo. Avalanche continues to make amazing improvement and he went back and saw his surgeon 1 1/2 years after the last post-op follow up and he is truly amazed at how well he is doing.

On another note, as per my title to this blog, my old doberman, Deon (he is 9) was busy playing rough with his baby sister Diva (she is 21 months) in the backyard while I was getting Avalanche's shoes on for our normal morning walk. But this morning was not normal. All of a sudden I heared screaming like I have never heard before. I ran to the backyard and Deon was on the ground and Diva was standing over him barking - like come on let's keep playing. When I moved her so he could get up, it was horrid! His left leg, just hung there. We had no idea what had happened - but he was in a lot of pain. After thinking about where to take him (it was a Sunday morning), we thought about our local emergency hospital for pets in Mission Viejo, but knew that if they couldn't deal with it, we would have to take him some place else Monday morning. So we decided to take him to All Care Animal Referral Center, the same place Avalanche was referred for his spinal cord injury.

Well, my old guy had severely broken his femur - the largest bone in the body! The break was a bad one (as the vet said it was like he was hit by a car). They thought that maybe he had bone cancer, since how could this huge bone break by a fall in the backyard. He was scheduled for surgery for the next morning and they had a bunch of tests to run. They found out that he is in the early stages of renal failure, which created some complications with the surgery - but it went off without a hitch. He had some new state-of-the-art prosthetic device put in his leg to stabilize the bone which only required one hole to be drilled into the bone and no wire! Five days in critical care were up and down trying to stabilize him medically, but he came home to us prior to Christmas. His 40 staples were taken out after his first post-op visit and he was such a good boy, we didn't need to bother with the e-collar, he left his incision alone.

He is on the road to recovery, but now much go on separate walks from his brother and sister since he needs to move slow. We have him on a special diet for kidney disease (this is another blog about the horrors of K/D Hill's Prescription Diet Dog Food) and he is doing GREAT! On his last checkup, the doctor could not believe how great his bone was healing for an old guy with kidney failure, he will show them that he might be down but not done yet! We sure love this guy and he is eating up the attention. The biggest problem is now he can't hold his bladder all night so we are doing 3:00 AM potty calls which is killing us - but we have our boy home and he is so sweet!