Eros: An amazing story of healing and communication

"On October 13, 2005 Eros my 4 year old GSD got out of the yard when his collar broke. He was not fixed yet and had decided to take a little stroll The few times this happened before he had gone to the woods behind my house and come right back. I didn't really start to get worried for about ten minutes, then I was sitting outside calling him and I heard a dog howl. I couldn't leave because I had two kids in bed and no car so I called my friend and asked her if she could come over. Well, before she got here my neighbor came home and asked me if I was looking for my dog. He had been right behind the pick up that had hit him. That night animal control took him to a local emergency vet wear they did chest X-rays and discovered tears in his lungs they put tubes in his chest and sucked fluid out and told us we needed to go to Tufts as they didn't have the resources to care for him there. we had to drive him to Tufts where they told us they where confident he would recover, took a huge deposit, and sent us on our way (for the night). The next morning at about 4:00 they called and said he needed to be put on a Ventilator there was something wrong with his lungs. Somehow he survived the next week he went back on the ventilator two more times. Finally they decided he was stable enough for surgery. They put a steel pin in his back to fix two displaced disks, Put an external fixator on his front loft leg from elbow to wrist,(his leg was shattered) took out a tooth and neutered him. The next day he was on the ventilator again after another week he was stable enough to be moved out of ICU to the regular ward. He slowly and steadily improved over the next two weeks and finally on November 17 (Thanks to GREAT Vets and dedicated students and staff) he came home. A list of his injuries would go something like this: lots of cuts and bruises, collapsed lung, lung contusions shattered front left leg, broken back, partial avulsion of the brachial plexus in his right front leg. He was really messed up. When he came home he could not even stand on his own He had a special harness on the front and I used a sheet as a sling in the back and carried him while trying to help him place his feet( he had no muscle on his body because he was down for two weeks at the hospital)I had to express his Urine (Probably the most difficult thing I've ever had to learn that was completely simple once I learned it) He had to do passive range of motion exercises 4 times a day and be stretched out twice. He has been doing great He walks and gets up on his own and wouldn't let me help him pee even if I wanted to. We had a recent setback with his brachial plexus injury. Sometime between two am and eight am on February eighteenth he decided to chew his toe off. This could be good news that feeling is coming back but we cant be sure. More bad news while he was being monitored during surgery they found an irregular electrical pattern in his heart, this could be suggestive of degenerative changes to a portion of his heart (right sided electrical shift is what they call it) He has to go for cardiology consult to find out more. Eros's story is a long one and its not over but the ride has been amazing watching walk (almost run) ten feet across the yard makes me over whelmed with pride we've both worked so hard to get him there. Its been the most amazing ride of my life and I can communicate with my dog in a way that I never would have thought possible before this Eros 2/16/06 11/17/05"