A Visit with Cooper

It was a quiet night followed by an early morning. B made herself a coffee before saying she'd meet me back at the ranch, so I headed home shortly after 8:30. S was already up with his coffee and getting ready to tackle the swather once again.

B arrived about an hour later, checked on her horses, then settled onto the couch to patiently wait for any news. I spent thirty minutes on hold with the emergency vet clinic trying to get the photos they had promised to send her. It turned out there had been a glitch in their system, and they finally arrived much later today after we'd returned home.

While we waited, I balanced the credit card statement, which always seems to take forever with missing information and expenses to enter.

Finally, the neurologist called. He had examined Cooper and scheduled a CT scan for 2 p.m. We were welcome to visit beforehand, but needed to have him back by 1:30 so he would be ready for imaging. It was already 12:30, so we jumped in the car and headed west, arriving around 1:10. Of course, there was still some waiting before we were shown into a room.

Then came the best surprise of the day.

Instead of us simply visiting Cooper in his kennel, they wheeled him into the room to see us. His face when he spotted us was absolutely priceless. Britt's matched it <3 Even better, they said we could take him outside for a few minutes, so we enjoyed a short visit before returning him right at 1:30 as requested.

Ironically, they didn't come to take him for his scan until nearly 2.

While Cooper was in imaging, B and I quickly stopped at her naturopath appointment, grabbed Tim's through the drive-thru, and ate our lunch in the emergency clinic parking lot.

Not long after, Dr. Diaz called with Cooper's CT results. Since we were only steps away, we went back inside so he could explain everything in person. After another short wait, he carefully walked us through the findings. His diagnosis was an acute nucleus pulposus extrusion, although B later found that hydrated nucleus pulposus extrusion may be a more likely fit. He thoroughly explained what they had found, what the outlook could be, and the different possibilities moving forward.

Hydrated Nucleus Pulposus Extrusion (HNPE) is an intervertebral disc disorder where a dog's gelatinous, non-degenerated disc material suddenly shoots outward, compressing the spinal cord. It most commonly affects the neck (cervical spine) of middle-aged to older dogs, leading to sudden neck pain and varying degrees of limb weakness

We waited again while Cooper recovered from his sedation. About twenty minutes later we were taken back into the visiting room, where we spent nearly two hours with him.

We even tried a FaceTime call with Harley. Neither dog seemed entirely sure what was happening, but they definitely recognized our voices when we spoke their names.

Before leaving, B and I said our goodbyes with the hope that Cooper would have an MRI tomorrow to pinpoint exactly where the spinal injury is before hopefully being discharged to come home.

Back at the ranch, B fed the horses while I fed Harley and spent a little time weeding the garden.

While we were gone, S was finally able to start cutting hay after getting all the swather leaks repaired. Well... almost all of them. He discovered one more leak after fixing the original problems but managed to get everything sorted and finally into the field.

After B headed home to spend the evening with Gulliver, I hand-watered the planters before turning on the soaker hoses. It was a bright sunny evening with one large black cloud hanging overhead. S came back in briefly to repair a swather guard before heading back out to continue cutting hay.

I finished up the Canada Day blog and made some progress on today's post before tidying the house so the robot could do its thing. Supper was a quick bologna sandwich as I started another episode of We Were Liars.

S finally came in shortly after 8 after calling it a day in the field. He fried up 2 bologna and cheese sandwiches, and we settled in with Clarkson's Farm—a distraction while I continue to worry about Cooper and B.