So far it's been a very lazy rainy day around here.... It's 1:41pm and Buster is STILL asleep from last night. Yesterday he went for a walk.. and he made it all the way around the block, something he hasn't done in months!!! He wasn't very happy with it.. but he was determined.. except when he was 3/4 of the way and thought it would be a good idea to turn around and go home...never mind he only had 1/4 of the way to go to finish the loop!
When he got home.. he wanted to keep walking! Last night he skipped his pain meds (gabapentin) which he likes to do sometimes and usually regrets it a day or so later.. but he did take his turmeric and his Body Sore chinese herbs and joint support.. He was up until about 1:30am walking around and finally decided to zonk out in the family room, where he still is right now as I write this... He had an AM treatment, and will have another one shortly... He has YET to get up so I don't know how his walking will be.. but the biggest difference that I can see - when he's asleep or awake is that he is NOT panting... He's been panting both when asleep and awake for the last 4 years or so!!! Even with gabapentin, acupuncture, chinese herbs, Traumeel (a little less with the traumeel) but not as relaxed as he is now... I suspect that means that the pain is deminished? We shall see.. time will tell this is only the beginning of Day 2.. but so far.. so good!!!
(warning... before you hit play.. he's a snorer... )
Rex, seems to be sleepy too. He hasn't moved his front arms today like he did yesterday. He did a little physical therapy and seemed to hold his head a little higher for a while but pooped out. I started to treat the middle of his back and his rear hips and legs today too so he hasn't had consistent treatments with the loop around his neck like yesterday. The tough part with the Assisi Loop is that you need to let it have 2 hours between each session to recharge. So if you have someone who has issues with multiple body zones like Rex (essentially his whole spine, and his arms and legs) and if they are not cat or chihuahua sized... it's a little bit of a challenge to consistently get 3-4 treatments to that body area / day without multiple devices... and I'm not sure if you CAN / SHOULD use multiple devices at the same time.. From the instructions, it looks like it creates an energy vortex or loop depending on your understanding of this stuff that is electromagnetic.. if you have 2 of these areas going at once... can they disrupt each other? or what happens if they are close enough and touch? Will it deminish the efficiency of the energy within the Loop(s)? Inquiring minds want to know!
Anyway - that's my issue for the day to try and figure out... DO I just start with his neck and get his upper body feeling better and stronger to the point where I only need to do a few treatments / day and then work our way down his back ? The back legs have been out of commission the longest... so will take the longest to get back on track... ideally it would be better to be able to treat multiple body zones at the same time... Maybe someone can shed some light on this conundrum... I'll have to reach out to the Assisi Loop Folks...
When he got home.. he wanted to keep walking! Last night he skipped his pain meds (gabapentin) which he likes to do sometimes and usually regrets it a day or so later.. but he did take his turmeric and his Body Sore chinese herbs and joint support.. He was up until about 1:30am walking around and finally decided to zonk out in the family room, where he still is right now as I write this... He had an AM treatment, and will have another one shortly... He has YET to get up so I don't know how his walking will be.. but the biggest difference that I can see - when he's asleep or awake is that he is NOT panting... He's been panting both when asleep and awake for the last 4 years or so!!! Even with gabapentin, acupuncture, chinese herbs, Traumeel (a little less with the traumeel) but not as relaxed as he is now... I suspect that means that the pain is deminished? We shall see.. time will tell this is only the beginning of Day 2.. but so far.. so good!!!
(warning... before you hit play.. he's a snorer... )
Rex, seems to be sleepy too. He hasn't moved his front arms today like he did yesterday. He did a little physical therapy and seemed to hold his head a little higher for a while but pooped out. I started to treat the middle of his back and his rear hips and legs today too so he hasn't had consistent treatments with the loop around his neck like yesterday. The tough part with the Assisi Loop is that you need to let it have 2 hours between each session to recharge. So if you have someone who has issues with multiple body zones like Rex (essentially his whole spine, and his arms and legs) and if they are not cat or chihuahua sized... it's a little bit of a challenge to consistently get 3-4 treatments to that body area / day without multiple devices... and I'm not sure if you CAN / SHOULD use multiple devices at the same time.. From the instructions, it looks like it creates an energy vortex or loop depending on your understanding of this stuff that is electromagnetic.. if you have 2 of these areas going at once... can they disrupt each other? or what happens if they are close enough and touch? Will it deminish the efficiency of the energy within the Loop(s)? Inquiring minds want to know!
Anyway - that's my issue for the day to try and figure out... DO I just start with his neck and get his upper body feeling better and stronger to the point where I only need to do a few treatments / day and then work our way down his back ? The back legs have been out of commission the longest... so will take the longest to get back on track... ideally it would be better to be able to treat multiple body zones at the same time... Maybe someone can shed some light on this conundrum... I'll have to reach out to the Assisi Loop Folks...
UPDATE 3PM
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| Crash landing at the end of the dog ramp |
... He crash landed at the bottom of the dog ramp...
Perhaps he wasn't really ready to be walking around and needed to sleep a bit more?
Usually he walks around the house for 20 minutes before he's ushered outside but he really slept in this morning.. so we'll try and cut him some slack...
... and maybe he was sore from that walk around the block yesterday... something he hasn't done in months...
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| This walking thing isn't working out well |
With a little help up.. he was back on his feet, and then headed down hill to do his business...
And then... BOOM!!!!! Down again!
Poor guy! This walking thing is not working out too well for him today...
As I walked over to stop taking pictures of his mis-fortune and help him up.. I noticed that he had stepped in a gopher hole!!! He had literally been undermined... literally!!! By a Gopher!!! (See the 2 pictures below!!!)
While these gophers are amusing to watch when they come out... I have a new found appreciation for Bill Murray in Caddy Shack...
I still love that dancing Gopher though!!!
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| Although he was LITERALLY Undermined by a Gopher! |
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| Perhaps 2 Gopher!!! Or a Gopher and Ground Hog |
| So... Once we managed to get out of the gopher hole ridden back yard...
and out onto the street, things were moving a bit more smoothly... Her
you can see how Buster has normally been walking, when he can walk...
His back right leg sometimes forgets to come along, he has a slump in
his back, head down, and he has some trouble with his front shoulders as
well.. He's pretty much a big furball of arthritis... we definitely
hope to fix this with the Assisi Loop... Yesterday he had had 3 treatments before he went on his walk.. today... just one before he was tossed out the door... As soon as he sits down he'll get treatment #2 for the day and we'll see where we go from there... Fingers crossed...
UPDATE 10PM
We're about to do our last treatments of the night (unless someone wakes me up at 2am.. which is pretty likely)... and just wanted to provide a quick recap on the day..
Buster's progress: Later this afternoon something really strange happened.. Buster stopped panting!!! Buster has consistently been panting in his sleep and while awake for ... oh... the last 3- 4 years or so, pretty consistently. At one point we thought it was a heart condition, but that checked out ok.. it was actually just constant pain.. he even pants while on pain killers.. and as you saw earlier.. he's quite the snorer.. so speed up your normal snoring rate.. and someone is pretty good at sawing wood! LOUDLY all night long..
Here's a video.. (excuse the mess... )
Rex Update: I'm not sure if we have progress... but here's what I noticed today... Rex lost his ability to speak when the cognitive dysfunction kicked in... Cognitive Dysfunction is kind of like Doggie Alzheimer's.. and this equates to someone losing the ability to speak.. He used to be VERY vocal so it was kind of a refreshing change and we didn't think much of it at first... When Rex wants to get attention he smacks his lips.. It's pretty effective. He did bark once in the middle of the night to wake me up.. a couple of months ago.. but I think he put a really big effort into this... What I noticed today while I was sitting with him and we were playing and I was making noises in his face and he was making them back at me, was he was starting to repeat the noises I made.. sometimes they were a forced squeak.. like he's not sure how to get his vocal chords going again.. but he was trying to repeat what I was doing.. Most of it was a low grunt which he did a few times this morning to get my attention... When I made a couple of whimpering / whining noses he tried to repeat them but only little high pitched squeaks and forced air came out.. he was definitely trying to force the air out to make noise.. I'll have to try and get this on video... who knows.. maybe I can teach him to speak enough to answer the phones at work?! One can hope.. aim high I say!!! Then see where you land.
He did a little more pushing with his arm... but not like the first day, and not as deliberate or forceful.. He can head but.. but his neck is still weak.. but he's still lunging for his bully stick.. which I stupidly tried to take away from him and then he bit me as you can see below... (lesson learned... Don't take the bully stick.. )
I'm also including a pathetic video of him drinking while laying on his stomach.. His neck and shoulders are not very strong to lift his head up.. He lost a lot of muscle mass... I'll add a view of him on his left side which at the moment is his strongest and you can see he can hold himself up better and doesn't look quite as pathetic... I'm including these videos so that hopefully we have a starting point where we can see marked progress from within a few weeks with his head held higher ...
Below is the Bully stick - bite video ( you can hear him grunt / growl a bit here too)
Below is the Pathetic video... which I will call Nose Bubbles..
This one is a bit better... Rex is laying on his stronger side... except he is having one of his moments where his head wants to be tilted and needs help straightening it (sometimes this happens after he's fallen asleep on a pile of towels... kind of like a crick (is that a word?) in the neck... anyway... hopefully in a couple of months he'll be sitting up high on his own, with his head straight and these videos will help us see how far he's come
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