Wally is Alive - maybe?

Wally, the dog that wont give up. If you like a pet story here is one about my dog that died and came back to life.  Wally turned 1 just after he got back from the vet’s the second time. Yes he should have died twice in his first year of life but didn’t.  the first time, even with paralysis tick control he went through a nest and had 5 under his chin all together. Wally was vomiting within the hour and paralyzed by the time I got him to the vets but 4 days later he was home and within a fe weeks back to normal. 

Now here is the story of the second visit to the vet’s. – well multiple vets.  Friday afternoon I arrive home and as usual Wally runs up the road to greet me. I stop, open the cabin door of the truck as usually and he jumps in he gets a good scruff.  Just like normal he runs off and I continue down the road to the shed for some reason this the day he will chase a tire and loops back and goes after my front tire as I start to move, his teeth must catch and I run over his head.  He is dead.

Knowing what has happened I jumped out and there he was, frozen stiff and not breathing. The stiffness I learned latter was the result of bleeding into his brain and spinal cord.  I grabbed him and blew hard into his nose until I hear a gargling sound and blood bubbled from his throat. He was at the vets within 10 minutes and onto their observation table. The half hour wait while they checked him out seemed hours only to be told to go home and get cleaned up, expect the worst as he was non reactive. Bugger, as naughty as he could be I love that dog and didn’t want to have to put him down.

An hour later the vet rang, one of Wally’s eyes was reacting to light, it was enough to try even though he was showing no other signs of any cognitive activity.  Another 4 hours went by and now both eyes reacted to light, Xrays showed no broken bones so there was a glimmer of hope. If he could make it through the night that would be a start.  The most brilliant vets sat with him during the nigh and finally when they changed the tubes down his throat to get the blood off his lungs he showed a gag response.  The next morning the vets decided to put him into an induced coma and 6 hours latter as it wore off his back legs moved, and his eyes still followed light. The vet again stayed with him in and out of 5 induced comas and each time he came out another little sign, the ability to swallow, hearing sound, reacting to noise and the ability to swallow water dripped on his tongue. By Sunday morning he had managed to turn around in his cage still with all the cords and tubes in him the question would become,  what extent of brain damage there might be?  Wally had gone from being dead to now past the 50/50 chance of living but the ‘elephant in the room’ was still the amount of brain damage and would ending his life be more responsible.

Sunday was spent with Wally being under heavy sedation but allowing him to fight on his own and see if he could overcome the blood and swelling in his brain. The changes were small, he was sill mostly unconscious but the signs were enough to send him off to the specialists in the city (Brisbane). So Tuesday was a CT scan and the results showed no real dead spots in the brain just sever swelling of the brain and his left sinus.  Wednesday and Thursday went past, no eating, no walking, no ability to go to the toilet on his own.

Decisions had to be made, do we persist or end it now.

We decided on an MRI scan to try to understand where the paralysis was coming from. The MRI cam back clear of any structural problems, the answer was the intangible issue of, time.  We just have to watch and see what he can do. So by Sunday, just over a week after I’d run over my dog and killed him I was bringing him home. I had built a harness in the shed, although as a farmer I was prepared to put him down I was also prepared to suspend him in the shed until I was sure he was not going to improve any more.

The dog that wont die – that’s Wally. Here is a video of him on day 2 of being home and thus starts the story of Wally’s recovery.