Neurology

Today is my third day of neurology.  And it's been quite a week already!  I had an appointment Monday that was real easy, a cocker spaniel who had been on medication for seizures but who hadn't had a seizure for two years so we told the owner to stop the medication and see what happens.  That afternoon a dachshund came into ER with a painful back and unable to use his hind legs after falling on his back while trying to get up on the bed.  ER called for a neurology consult so we checked him out and felt like he had probably slipped a disc in his back.  At this point, it was decided that neurology would take over the case and I ended up with him as my patient.  We did a CT scan and it showed, that between his 11th and 12 thoracic vertebra a disc had ruptured and its contents were putting pressure on his spinal cord, thus making it so that he could not walk.  We went into surgery almost immediately (about 5PM Monday evening) and removed a little bit of bone and scooped out the material that was compressing the spinal cord.  However, he actually got a little worse after surgery in that he was no longer able to feel pain in his legs which he had been able to do before surgery.  After a day of not being able to feel pain, we ran another CT scan which showed that a large amount of blood had pooled at the surgery site and was compressing the spinal cord again.  So, within an hour or so, I will be going back into surgery with the dog (and the neurologist) and we will be re-opening his back and removing the blood to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord.  It should be an interesting surgery however it's too bad for the dog that we have to open up his back again.  We have had three surgeries already for slipped discs in dogs in the past three days.  It's been keeping us quite busy here in neurology!