Hannah the Dog Health Update

I think it bears repeating that Hannah the Dog is a wonderful canine companion. She's sweet, obedient, loyal, smart, and eager to please. I'm obviously biased, but I can kind of see why people become breed loyalists.  Hannah is the perfect dog for us and if anything ever happened to her, I'd want another dog just like her.  

But she's had health woes.  She's had tapeworms, hookworms, and her GI issues were quite terrible until we got her diet under control.  She has mysterious environmental allergies that we control with regular bathing and medication.  And then the random reoccurring pain began.

At some point, I picked up her from daycare and she wouldn't jump in the back of the car like normal. I hauled her up and took her home and she's never been the same since. Every so often, something will happen and she'll just be in agony when she gets up and down. She'll cry and whine and she can't sleep, but she's super uncomfortable to be awake.  

It's not clear what causes this. Sometimes she is injured after roughhousing with other dogs. Sometimes it's because she had a vigorous playing session with a tennis ball. Sometimes she's done nothing more strenuous than walk around the block with me. She's been to vet after vet and Tuesday morning she saw a neurologist (in consultation with an orthopedist and I was waiting in the car the whole time, thinking about how this little creature has two of the most seriously high-powered veterinarians in our little corner of Wisconsin looking at her).

This morning she'll have an MRI. We're hoping it will help us to diagnose the problem so we can help her. But they have to put her under general anesthesia and it's possible the MRI will show absolutely nothing and we'll have wasted thousands of dollars and put her at risk for no reason.  

So as you're going about your Friday today, thinking about your weekend plans and how life is really turning around after months and months of dreariness, spare a thought for our little Hannah girl.  She's the best dog, of course, and we'd like her feel better and run, jump, wrestle and be mischievous like other dogs. 

If the MRI gives us something we can treat humanely, we definitely will. If it doesn't give us any information, we will rest easy knowing we have done the best that we can with our limited information. And, in the meantime, let's all hope that Hannah's day today goes well and she's back at home, healthy and happy, in time for dinner.