I really appreciate the kind letters of support from everyone. I spoke to
the head surgeon who did the April disc surgery and he said in 16 years of
practice, he's never seen a second disc go out on a large breed dog. So the
other younger surgeon didn't realize it was only dachshunds who are known to
have a potential for reoccurrence (15%). But here is the difficult part.
I asked him if he fenestrated the disc in question at the April surgery and
he thought he probably did but couldn't access the records at the moment.
Today I got the records and there's no mention of it that I can see, whereas
I can clearly see that this younger surgeon Saturday did fenestrate the next
disc over to avoid having this occur again.
To explain this a little for anyone who is interested -- when one neck disc
ruptures (the first was between c6-c7), there is the danger that later the
next one (between c5-c6) will be affected by the pressure so they make a
small hole in it as an escape valve. On Saturday the younger surgeon worked
on c5-c6 and then fenestrated c4-c5. But last April, there's nothing in the
chart to show that the head surgeon (who is quite good) fenestrated c5-c6.
That is disappointing because it raises the question if he had, perhaps we
would not be putting Hugo through this second surgery 8 months later.
Boy, I know more about this stuff than I ever wanted to know!
Hugo is still in the hospital there. Not much appetite (very unusual for
him). He'll sit up in a sternum position but not stand yet. Our house is
very lonely and quiet without him.
Donna and Hugo, SoCal
