Hope & Mystery with Lucinda the Dog

Several of you have asked for a Lucinda update, so here it is. 

Monday was a month since her episode of paralysis. Since then, she's had no more. She's joined Kobe dog on short walks each evening more than a week ago. Yesterday morning, she joined Kobe for a short morning walk too. She was positively bouncy last weekend - her old self. And because, four weeks ago, I was convinced I might not even have her going into October, I'm so unbelievably hopeful and grateful. 

But cautious. 

Her lack of paralysis in the last four weeks has greatly confused the vets, and as a result, they can't answer the question I want most answered: does Lucy have Degenerative Myelopath (DM), in which case she has a fatal disease, or does she have Intervertebral Disk Disease (IVDD), in which case she has an injury that may heal through limited physical activity (or may need surgery eventually)?   

Right now, we're leaning towards IVDD. But we could be wrong. Really, only time will tell, because we can't afford a $4000 (or more!) MRI. 

Here's why she might have IVDD instead of DM:

• No paralysis in a month. If she had DM, she should have had another paralysis episode by now.
   
• The paralysis happened less than 48 hours after she had played with Bishop, a full-grown 70 pound or so puppy. He's about a year old, and he and Lucinda love each other beyond words. Bishop has never, ever been aggressive with her or tried to mount her. Most of their play is intense romping bitey face. But the romps are intense, with some body crashes during zoomies, and Lucy is ready for a rest long before Bishop. It's unusual for paralysis to show up so long after the fact, but it is possible. 
   
• She wouldn't lay completely on her side for most of the first two weeks. She would lay in a ball, or lay on her stomach, like a sphinx, but she wouldn't lay on either side and did no rolly pollies on her back. It wasn't clear to people that didn't know her, but it was clear to me: she was uncomfortable. DM is not supposed to cause pain - it causes numbness.  
   
• More than two weeks ago, she snapped at Kobe dog twice when he barely laid his head on her back. There is no way he hurt her - we've touched her there repeatedly to make sure. But she clearly did not want him to even dare to apply any pressure back there. It reminded me that she's snapped at two or three other dogs in the last year that she didn't know, ones her size or bigger, something she NEVER did in her first six years. I'd written off that change in behavior to pandemic social distancing - I thought I had accidentally taught her not to be friendly to new dogs. But maybe she's been sensitive to her back for a while now.
   
• Lucinda has always whimpered or yelped at some point when she's chewing her back left paw during a mani pedi. She moves her leg more than her head to do the chewing - she can bring the foot over completely to her mouth. And about once a week, when she is chewing that foot, she'll whimper or yelp. Dogs don't yelp unless they are in a LOT of pain - they will put up with a great deal of discomfort before they ever show signs that something hurts. The emergency vet said the paralysis was worst in her left leg, and you will recall the observation of my regular vet made about her left leg.
  

Here's why she might have DM instead of IVDD:

• She recovered from her paralysis in a few hours. That's typical of DM, not IVDD.
   
• The paralysis happened suddenly - Lucy got up for breakfast and during her meal, was just fine. She laid down in the living room like always - and two hours later, couldn't get up.
   
• The way her back curved as she tried to use her back legs, and the way she dragged her legs, was textbook DM, according to the emergency vet.
   
• If it's an injury, it would be so unusual for paralysis to show up so many hours after the supposed injury (in this case, about 40 hours later).
  

We still haven't done the genetic test to see if she carries the DM gene. I wanted to wait for Stefan to get home to help me (it's a bit complicated) and in this week since he's been back, he's been busy. We'll do that this weekend. 

Lucinda went off all pain meds and muscle relaxants more than two weeks ago. She now plays a little with Kobe for a few minutes each evening, to the point that I recently had to tell her two days ago to back off - SHE was getting too bouncy. The vet said it's up to me how physical I'm going to let her be, though he said not letting her play with dogs her size or bigger was probably a good idea (which breaks my heart, because we love Bishop and her other bouncy buddy, Beauregard, so, so much). 

I've decided I'll keep her on these short morning and evening walks, and I'll try her on her usual, long morning walk towards the end of October - or maybe early November. 

So many people seeing her now are saying, "But she looks fine." And she does. She looks absolutely like her old self. There is nothing at all to indicate there is anything at all wrong with her. But I'd rather be cautious, because if she is injured, I need to make certain not to do anything to make that injury worse. 

Is this a reprieve of months or years? I don't know. IVDD seems like the lesser of the two evils, but the reality is that, if she has IVDD then, eventually, she will have paralysis again. And the idea of her not playing with Bishop or Beauregard makes me tear up - she loves them so, so much. I think she'll be fine to play with much smaller dogs, but only in our backyard. 

We also have to face the reality that, no matter what she has, we're not going to get the years with her we wanted, and that she deserves. Of course, what dog parent does get that?

I will decide October 15th if I'm going to Sweden for my dear friend Alex's wedding in December. Right now, I'm feeling optimistic. 

With each week, we're going to know more about what she can and can't do. For now, I'm reveling in the unexpected joy that she's so happy and comfortable.

Still trying to be Scottish

Hurrah! Ancestry.com has redone the DNA tests again. The company retests stuff every few years, per better technology and more samples to judge against. And this time, I've gone down from 73% England & Northwestern Europe (a wee slice of the French and Belgium coasts) to 56% (hurrah!), and increased my Scottish ancestry - it's now up to 32%! The rest: Germanic Europe 5%, Ireland 4%, Norway 3%.

And the reality is... it doesn't really mean I'm more Scottish than I was last week. The reality is that someone whose grandparents were all Pakistani and who was born in Scotland and is living there now is far, far more Scottish than I am. 

To figure out a person's regional ethnic connections, Ancestry.com - and the other companies - compare your DNA to a reference panel of DNA from groups of people who have they have designated as having "deep roots" in one region - people who have family going back for many, many generations in that specific region. They look at more than 1000 sections of a person's DNA and assign each section to the ethnicity region it looks most like. Then they turn those results into the percentages or estimates we all geek out over. 

As I wrote in Ancestry drama, the blog right after my first revised DNA results, which drastically reduced my percentage of shared DNA with the Irish and Scots: 

the reality is that the people I thought I was descended from in Ireland and Scotland didn't even build all the rock circles there - the people that built those were smaller, darker, and share genetic heritage with the people in Sardinia now - and, sadly, were completely wiped out by the people I thought I was related to.

So even if I were "more" Scottish, I could not gaze upon the incredible rock circles of Kilkenny and believe I had some sort of special DNA connection to the people that built them - instead, I have a special DNA connection to the people that killed all those cairn and rock circle builders. 

Upon seeing the results of the first test, the idea of being associated with the people who have been in Ireland and Scotland for the last several hundred years thrilled me. The idea of being as much Greek and Roman as I was English thrilled me. But, wham, better science with the revised test, and suddenly, I was just English. I was heartbroken. I wrote on Facebook how disappointed I was to be so boring, and an English friend responded: 

But what IS English? We’re a complete mixture. Aside from 2000 years of trade with Europe and beyond, mixing with the Celts, we’ve been invaded by Vikings (Scandinavian), Romans (from anywhere in the Empire from North Africa to the Balkans and Germany to Spain) and the Normans (french people of Nordic origin) so actually you’re still desperately exotic, windswept and interesting!!...

The English are mutts. Truly. 

And now, here I am, with the second revised DNA results, and my Scottish ancestry has shot back up, and I'm thrilled for no good reason. 

The reality is that I'm me, regardless of what my DNA test results say. 

What I'm much more interested in is the names of each of my ancestors that came from across the ocean to North America. I want to know where each was from and where each landed, and I'd love to get some idea of who each was: indentured servant? Criminal? Ain't no royalty or landed gentry in this crew, I can tell you that much. But it's hard - my first foreign relative doesn't show up until a great, great, great grandfather, from Germany. I don't know his name - just his daughter's name, and on the first US Census where she's listed, she's married and says her father was German. Dead End. I've got a lot of dead ends. I come from people who were poor farmers with inconsistent spelling abilities and questionable literacy skills. 

What I'm also much more interested in is trying to find out who my long-dead family is: what did they do to make ends meet? How many children did they have? Where did they live? Did they serve in wars? 

And inevitably, you get to a place in your family where you have to choose between the name given and the actual biological roots - because none of us are without at least one moment in our tree where a biological father is unknown, or a biological father wasn't at all a part of someone's upbringing. None of us are without adoptions, official or unofficial, in our family trees. And I go for what I consider family: them that raised ya and claim ya. I'm much more interested in the connections of family and shared experiences than I am in DNA, ultimately. 

The reality is that I'm me, regardless of what my family names say. 

My previous blogs on the subject of ancestry:

tips for using ancestry.com

Uncle Minnie

Rethinking "indigenous" & DNA results

Ethnic, cultural, gender identity - good luck with your definitions

What is Southern heritage? What is worth celebrating?

We still love Lucy

A week after Lucinda the dog's trip to the emergency vet and her diagnosis of Degenerative Myelopath (DM), she'd had no second episode of paralysis. So I wrote the emergency vet and told her this, told her she seemed fine. I got this from one of the vet techs: 

I am so happy to hear that Lucy is doing well at home. Dr. Schwindt thought that Degenerative Myelopathy was a possibility, but it is more likely that Lucy has that Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD). Since she is improving with the medications sent home, IVDD does seem to be the most likely culprit. Dr. Schwindt recommends finishing out the prednisone as prescribed and keeping Lucy on her gabapentin. It is okay to give the lower dose of the muscle relaxant as long as she is continuing to do well. Here is an article with more information about IVDD: 

Intervertebral Disk Disease (IVDD) in Dogs - Veterinary Partner - VIN

My regular vet, Dr. Syd, was booked solid, and according to the online scheduler, I couldn't get her in to see him until October. I schedule the appointment for mid October, then pleaded via email for something earlier. And I got it - for today. And here's the 411 from today:

Dr. Syd thinks it still might be DM, but maybe not - he just can’t tell. He said that it’s very strange, if it’s IVDD, that she was paralyzed for 6 hours a full day after playing with a year old puppers but then got better, but that there certain are cases of dogs being injured while playing and the injury showing up later - he just thinks it’s weird that it got better, if she's injured, that the paralysis did show up later and then got better on its own in just a few hours. 

He curled each of Lucy's feet, and her back left paw didn’t snap back the way it should - it oh-so-slowly uncurled. I could see it so obviously and I gasped at what I saw. The emergency vet also said that her left leg was especially bad during the paralysis. But it did, slowly, curl back into place. It's the most definite sign that something is still very wrong. 

I told him that she'd snapped at a couple of dogs in the last six months, and I'd been shocked, because she NEVER does that. She has snapped at Kobe twice when all he did was walk up to her and put his head over her back shoulder blades - not even on them. But she will let me and any human pet her on her shoulder blades. I had decided the snapping was because she was protective of her back - she knows dogs can be unpredictable. She has NEVER let Bishop, her very best dog buddy ever, do anything on her backside, not even lay his head. They play VERY rough - but she has let him know lately she has an absolute limit (thank goodness that sweet boy takes "no" for an answer).  

Dr. Syd had me walk Lucy outside while he watched, walking her back and forth and in a circle. I, of course, spoke in a high-pitched voice to her as we walked back and forth, making references to Best in Show because, even in a moment of crisis I shall always be a total dork. He watched her and after a whiel, he remarked how she was just as spry and normal as could be and he saw NOTHING wrong. And back in the exam room, when it was time to leave, she did a downward dog.

So he’s as confused as we are. 

He says: let’s wait a month and see. She’s out of all of her meds except the muscle relaxant. He says: no more meds. Not for now. Keep her in this low activity mode, no playing with other dogs, no walking long distances, for 30 days. Maybe after just a week or whenever I think it’s best, I could walk her a bit. And after a month, bring her back to him for another exam. 

He said we should do the genetic test for DM just to eliminate DM as a possibility (and even if she carries the gene, it doesn’t mean she has it). But he said the only way we are going to know absolutely, positively, if it’s an injury that needs surgery is to do an MRI - there is no other way. It’s at least $3000. He had his dog scanned that way, they found the problem disk, he had surgery, and he’s fine now and he says he’s got 5 or so years ahead of him now. Yes, I will pay $3000 if it means I get my girl for 5 or more years. 

But there’s no rush at all for an MRI and there may NEVER be a need, and another month of no surgery, if it’s a disc issue, isn’t going to hurt her. 

So, another month of this low activity. And now, we try with no meds, to see how she does. No playing with Bishop, her very best buddy in the universe, which breaks my heart. No playing with other dogs at all, except Kobe, which is just a lot of posturing for 5 minutes after supper. Otherwise, they just hang out together and talk shit about me. 

I’m going to wait until Stefan is home from his vacation and then we are going to walk her together for a little bit, each Saturday and Sunday.

Time will tell, I hope.