Sunday, December 4, 2011

A Terrible Accident

This is by far the hardest post I've had to make and I really don't want to, but I feel that for the few of you out there that read about Luna's adventures you should know what is going on.

I took Luna to run at another LGRA event on Saturday.  It was turing out to be a fantastic day.  Sunny (yet cold), tons of greyhounds to compete against, and Luna was placing 1st!  We were having a wonderful time.

At the end of the second race, Luna was in 1st place (my good girl).  When the lure stopped, she stopped to attack it, but the dog behind her did not.  It was a T-bone collision at full speed.  I wish I could forget how she looked after she finished rolling.  It will burn in my mind forever and it causes me great pain to think about it.

The other dog's basket muzzle was shattered and it's mouth was cut up, but otherwise it was fine.  Luna, on the other hand, struggled to breath and could not get up.  I was certain that she was going to die in my hands right there in that field.

Someone said we needed to get her to a vet and that snapped me into action.  I ran to bring my car around, we loaded her up, a wonderful lady named Pam (who I had not talked to yet) jumped in the car to drive so I could hold Luna still.  It took us 30 minutes to get to the emergency vet clinic, but it is an amazing clinic with a terrific staff.  It is the best possible place we could have taken her.

X-rays show that her first two vertebrae were affected.  When we first brought her in, Luna could not move her front legs, but she could feel pain in all legs.  After a few hours, she was able to move all four legs.  We decided to skip the risky surgery and use the wait and see method in the hopes that she would continue to improve on her own.

While she had been improving yesterday and last night, there has been no change since then.  She is not getting worse, but she is not getting better.  The most healing occurs during the 48 hours after the injury. At this point, she cannot control her bladder and cannot stand, but she still feels pain in her legs.  The chances of a full recovery are small, but we are going to give her the full 48 hours to see how far she can come.

Please keep your fingers crossed for Luna.  I will provide an update tomorrow when I know more.

9 comments:

genji said...

OMG! That sucks! We are keeping all our paws crossed for Luna to recover.

Hiking Hounds said...

Oh no, I'm so sorry this happened! Poor girl. I'll be keeping her in my thoughts and sending lots of healing prayers.

Kini_pella said...

Words cannot even begin to describe what you must be feeling...I am so sorry. I will have Luna in my thoughts and will check back often. Fingers crossed for her <333

Unknown said...

how is luna today?

Witty Angel said...

Thank you all for the kind words. It's nice to know Luna has people and animals rooting for her across the world. We will be visiting her in a few hours. I'll post a note when we return.

houndstooth said...

My heart just sank when I read this! We're thinking good thoughts for your girl!

brooke said...

We came over from Bunny's blog. We're keeping Luna in our thoughts! Darwin was t-boned by her (overweight) dad when she was staying with them while we were out of town almost 2 years ago and we got her back and she was walking really funny (her rear end was really gimpy). We tried pain killers and steroids and even had MRI's and xrays done. Nothing really helped other than chiropractic treatments and acupuncture. If you can find a holistic vet in your area those things could help! We took Darwin in for treatments over the course of a year and a half and she's so much better. If she plays really hard her back end shows some gimpiness, but other than that she's much stronger.
I hope Luna is able to come home soon!

Anonymous said...

So sorry! I would suggest acupuncture, acupuncture, acupuncture. When my greyhound was paralyzed it helped a lot. There were times when the improvement was noted immediately. Different injury/cause than Luna's but at least acupuncture is not painful or expensive. Can't hurt to try. Wishing you lots of luck!

Jen
Never Say Never Greyhounds

greygirl25 said...

Wow, I'm just catching up. I'm so sorry to hear about Luna's accident. It's horrible when they are doing what they love to do and have something like this happen.

Hang in there. We've got lots of paw crossed here for a fast bounce back.