Since I dropped the ball last week on a Gracie update, this post is going to combine weeks 5 and 6 in the recovery. Gracie is still doing really well. The big news for Week 6 was that our therapist gave me the ok to start letting her do stairs (as long as we use her walking sling). My back is pretty much shattered at this point from carrying her around everywhere, so, this was a huge relief (for me at least).
We are doing water therapy twice a week which means that we spend a lot of time at the vet. Last week we hit sort of a milestone on the underwater treadmill – Gracie made it up to a quarter of a mile.
I was so inspired by her progress that when we got home, I decided to head out for a run. I was ridiculously sore for three days afterward.
Our session on Friday did not go nearly as well – Gracie had a bit of a regression. She did about 15 minutes (begrudgingly) and decided that she was D-O-N-E. It was a pretty impressive display of whining and we cut the session short thinking that maybe she was really hurting. As soon as we got back in the therapy room, she was 100% fine – wiggling/grinning/acting like a fool. I think the whining was all a ploy to get her way.
We headed back to therapy again today for water therapy session #7 along with a laser treatment. We are going to continue with monthly laser treatments from here on out to help with the arthritis in her hips.
Today went much better. She did .30 of a mile on the treadmill and I didn’t hear even one whine. She has always enjoyed the laser treatments – I think she secretly likes wearing the doggles.
On to Week 7 we go – crossing my fingers for another smooth week!
