In a house with one dog and three cats it's safe to say there's never a dull moment. Annie's medical issues were the main reason I put this blog aside over a year ago drastically reducing my posts to almost nothing.
Annie had a second tumor in the same family group as her first, went through a second operation then started radiation therapy. After five days of radiation therapy she developed back pain and lameness in her hind legs. She had some sort of spinal infection but all her tests came up negative.
The pain was excruciating; she lost the use of her back legs. Three neurologists and untold varieties of antibiotics and painkillers later the pain was relieved and the infection erased by a doctor wise enough to ignore the negative test findings and treat the symptoms.
Annie would have been cured but lame if Artie and I hadn't realized that her legs were atrophying. We contacted Dr. Young who has a therapist on staff. Regular at-home therapy sessions restored her back leg strength along with her ability to walk.
February 2015 was the second cancer surgery. One month later the radiation therapy started when the infection developed. Radiation was discontinued. Annie's recovery was very slow but steady; she spent many months on medicine, Early on, the Oncologist and Neurologist handling her radiation told us there was nothing else that could be done for her suggesting we end her life. Dr. Young believed whatever was going on was curable and deep in our guts so did I and Artie.
We worked with two more Neurologists, their assistants, many techs and everyone at Dr. Young's office to bring Annie back to health. It took months of weaning her off the antibiotics but by New Year's Eve Annie was off the last of the antibiotics long enough that we could safely say the infection was eradicated.
Her therapy continued and she steadily regained strength in her hindquarters coming back to her old self by early summer of 2016 more than a year after her surgery.
The video footage was taken during the first few days of Annie's radiation therapy before the spinal infection manifested itself.
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