I posted a couple of months or so ago that Bailey had tweaked her upper back and was put on crate rest for 4 weeks. She's been doing much better, and has been gated into the kitchen at Julie's (my ex) during the day to keep her separated from Peanut (who loves to jump all over Bailey) and off of the furniture.

Well, Sunday night/Monday morning Julie woke up around 1:00am to Bailey yelping and shivering in pain. She rushed her to the ER (I slept through the phone call...have been flogging myself for that ever since) where they admitted her. The diagnosis is cervical intervertebral disk disease (IVDD), and of course they want to do surgery right away. She hasn't lost any movement, although she has been in a lot of pain. Can't stand to have her neck touched at all unless she's heavily medicated.

We are willing to have the surgery done if that is the only option, but it seems too soon to make that kind of decision. I talked to Yolanda yesterday and she said necks are more painful, but they heal better in the long run than backs. Of course, at that point we didn't know they wanted to operate. I'm still trying to contact Yolanda with the update to see what she says.

My GF is the Chief of Animal Control for Arlington County, VA and she's had one of her staff members calling around to the vets they work with to get some other opinions. They also have an acupuncturist that they use, so we're looking into that, too.

I'm doing a good job so far of not freaking completely out. Julie and I decided that if Bailey comes home tonight I'll go pick up Peanut and keep her for 2 weeks to give Bailey a good chance to heal without getting hit with Nut's flying body tackles every chance she gets.

Thanks for letting me vent about this. I could sure use some of those good DLC and maybe a :pray: or two if you don't mind.

I'll keep you posted.