Wow, can you believe it’s already been almost 2 months since my surgery? How time flies, especially when you’re locked up inside a cell without the light of day (crate rest), tortured with high voltage needles (electro-acupuncture), or forced to do hard labor every other day (physical rehab).
Just kidding – but that’s how it felt sometimes. It was tedious, boring, tough, and sometimes relaxing, but I stuck to my motto of “Keep Ballin’” and now I’m happy to be a regular dog again – with some caveats of course!
I can’t help but think of all those training sessions in the water treadmill where I just felt like giving up…
But no, I just couldn’t ever let myself “drop the ball”!
You may remember how when I started my rehabilitation, I set a goal to be in the Olympics one day…
Because hey, if I’m going to work this hard for something I might as well strive for greatness.
Well, now that I’ve completed the initial rehabilitation program, Dr. Gumley and the kind folks at Cedarview Animal Hospital (who specialize in rehabilitation) were thoughtful enough to award me a GOLD MEDAL for my outstanding performance!
I’m feeling pretty proud right about now!
And of course, I can’t forget Dr. Jull of the Vscan Neurology Clinic who performed my surgery and did an excellent job.
So, I do plan on continuing with a few things for safekeeping, like the water treadmill to stay strong and occasional acupuncture. (I still have a bit of leg pain once in a while because my affected disc had tethered around the nerve root.
I know my experience has raised a lot of questions and concerns from fans… so I’ve created a page on my site dedicated to IVDD (intervertebral disc disease), including signs/symptoms, treatment options, prevention, my experience, etc, etc.
This diagram is an example of the information I’m providing to help people understand it a bit better..
I’m thankful that I’m recovering well. In fact, I’m hoping this may be my last post-surgery update… (knock on wood!)
I think it really helped my morale to have my brother Oakley around these past couple weeks too. Heck, he was such a trooper as to join me in the treadmill!
Although he didn’t always know which way to go, and we ended up bumping into each other a lot (that’s him in the back, pushing my bum off to the left). But at least he kept it interesting!
And now that I can finally roam the house again, I can choose to relax wherever I want!
So for the first fire we made in the new house, I got to sit right beside it and enjoy it – with my favorite duckie of course! 🙂
But my brother is never far away…
Heck, sometimes he’s right on the other end of my squeaky toy!
But as you may already know, Oakley lives to destroy toys.
So after having ENOUGH of distastefully watching as Oakley destroyed my toys around the house, I was beginning to get a little pissed.
You can tell by my concerned expression here as I look to the camera man as if to say, “are you seriously allowing this?!”
But since the camera man woudln’t help me, I had to take matters into my own hands paws, so I ended up stealing the toys away from Oakley that were about to meet imminent death and brought them into my crate for safekeeping.
(Even the ones I don’t normally play with or necessarily care about).
But sadly, a few just didn’t make it…
This poor Sherlock Holmes toy literally had his face ripped off.
But oh well, I guess that’s the trade-off of having the company of a little brother around.
Like an little brother, he can be a bother on occasion, but he’s also a lot of fun, and we had a lot of good times over the past couple weeks together…
Like golfing!
If you didn’t see the video yet, check it out here.
And when we had a bath, we wore matching robes!
And for one of the last warm days, we wore matching sandals (Mum included)!
And when we weren’t up to anything in particular, we just hung out and enjoyed some sunshine together…
It’s been swell having him here, but tomorrow he heads back home, because tomorrow I myself am hitting the road again. I’ll be flying to Calgary, Alberta for my book signing event on Saturday. Hope to see lots of you there!
So until next time, my brother Oakley says “farewell, see you soon!”
Thank you all so much for wishing me well, sending me get-well cards and gifts, following along my recovery, and just being awesome fans.
I couldn’t have done it without all of you.
Keep ballin’,
~ Crusoe
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