Baffling Boy

Well. Today’s visit to the vet school wasn’t all I’d hoped. Duncan took the family trait of making the vets work for a diagnosis a bit too far. He was examined by an ortho and a neurologist, and had blood work done and x-rays taken. After all that, the vets agree there is definitely a problem – Duncan’s rear end is slowly collapsing. They just don’t know what’s causing it. Thank goodness we had the video from May, because that meant they didn’t have to take my word for it. The vets could see a difference between May and today. They found some evidence of what might be a possible CCL (ACL for humans) tear in his right knee, but the x-ray didn’t show anything significant. They didn’t find anything wrong with his spine, and the vet said that the protruding vertebra is due to the sinking of Duncan’s rear end. One good thing they discovered is that Duncan’s really not in any pain from the sinking. He does have some pain with the right knee, but as we already knew, that’s intermittent.

So, the results are as follows:

Regarding his knee, the vets aren’t concerned about it at this time. If Duncan starts to have prolonged trouble, lasting a week or more, I’m to bring him back in for reevaluation.

Regarding his back end, the vets are concerned, but baffled. The neuro feels that its possibly a myelopathy or chronic disc lesion, but they can’t find real evidence of either at this time. If Duncan continues to sink but doesn’t have any other related symptoms, they would likely do a muscle biopsy, which I took to be a rather unpleasant procedure. If he starts showing other neurological signs, like dragging his feet or wobbling (actual back end wobbling, not his normal sashaying), they want to see him.

Which means we wait.

While we're waiting, Duncan is allowed to continue herding and going for walks. Poor boy. He’s had such a hard day and the sedation is still making him groggy, but we still don’t have the answers we need. I bought him a cookie at Gourmutt’s today – I’ll give it to him tomorrow when he’s awake enough to appreciate it (and keep Reyna from stealing it).