3 Weeks Post-Op Report

We are happy to report that Cody is now standing on his own and can even take a few steps without his walk-about-harness for support. They are wobbly steps, but steps all the same. He loves the fact that he has some mobility back, when it's time to go outside for a potty break or when we do his physical therapy exercises and let him walk around the house his tail wags in such excitment. It's such a heartwarming sight and we could not be happier for him!

He had his first hydrotherapy session at Flying Cloud Vet last week and Sandi said she that he did great! She's thinking he'll need about 10 weeks of rehabilitation to build up his strength but we'll see how he progresses.

Being that he's getting his energy back it's getting harder to keep him on 'crate rest' but we are sticking to it the best we can to ensure he has the best recovery possible. We do cheat a little by letting him lay with us on the bed once in a while but it's just for a short time.

We'll never know for sure, but given he had no deep pain sensation, had complete rear paralysis and was past the 24 hour time frame when he went in for surgery, we credit the stem cell treatment for giving him the chance to walk again. We are so grateful to the U of M for having known about this study and giving us the option to try it with Cody. 

For those Dachshund parents out there, if you ever have to go through IVDD and spinal surgery be sure to ask about stem cell therapy. I haven't seen many IVDD forums talking about it. My guess is that it's so new that not many people are aware of the benefit.