After yesterday's discouraging news about Kodiak, we are now just eagerly waiting until we can bring him back to the ranch. This morning he was pretty doped up ... even though they didn't find anything operable, Kodiak still had the equivalent of major back surgery. By this afternoon he was awake and feeling better, Dr. Lawrence told us. We are going to leave him at the hospital in their care until Saturday, when our indispensable volunteer, Jerry Black, will drive over to Spokane to pick him up for us.
Late this afternoon I received an e-mail with several images taken from Kodiak's myelogram. Dr. Jeff Siems, a board-certified veterinary radiologist who works in the same building as our surgeons, had converted the myelogram images to jpegs and e-mailed them to us. Dr. Siems then patiently walked me through the images on the phone and explained what I was looking at. Thank you, Dr. Siems!
The image here is probably the best one that illustrates the compression problem in Kodiak's spine. (Click on photo for bigger version.) You can see the vertebrae and the three vertical spaces ... the intervertebral discs ... between them, starting on the left. Then, look for the horizontal sheath .. or dura mater ... that runs across the vertebrae from left to right. That's the watertight sac that holds the spinal cord. Look for the second (or middle) intervertebral disc ... you can see where the sheath is compressed.
It appears more pinched underneath, right where the intervertebral disc is, but Dr. Siems explained that the biggest problem is the compression that occurs on the top side of the sheath. The compression extends across parts of two vertebrae. The sheath should be a uniform thickness from one end of this image to the other. It's not.
Does the Dr. think this is a form of arthritist? Or old scar tissue from an injury? Maybe Glucosamine/Condroitin may help a little?
Posted by: Karen/ SA | August 25, 2005 at 11:23 PM