I wish I could be like my girls (Top: Maya, Bottom: Bindi) here but it’s 3:18 am and I’m staring at the ceiling with a zillion thoughts racing through my head. This photo of my gals was taken about a week ago. I thought of taking one right now but Bindi just settled down after a couple of hours of being antsy.
Bindi is almost 15 & 1/2 years old. She’s doing great despite our belief of her having degenerative mylopothy. It’s basically an incurable disease that sees the nerve endings die off leading to partial and eventually full paralysis. It usually starts off with the hind legs and works its way forward. The one shining light in that miserable diagnosis is that there is no pain associated with it. They don’t feel it...it just basically stops working over time.
It could just be a bad day/night as we took her on a short walk yesterday but I think we are starting to see the slow progression of it taking over. It getting harder for her to get around as her hind legs, mainly the right one is super weak. She finds herself having a bit of difficulty getting up and maneuvering in the past 24 hours.
I’m not at full panic mode yet as we’ve seen days/nights such as this one in the past 13 months since we started noticing issues. But it’s a bit alarming as they seem to happen more frequently now. If it continues I’ll be getting her a sling or perhaps a set of wheels. That’s what most folks do. She’s still happy and enjoys life and it’s NOT her time as long as she’s not in pain and loving life. She sleeps a ton but that’s what 15 year old angels do...
Tonight is rough though as she’s just pacing back and forth...super antsy. Then she gets tired and plops down on the hardwood floor on the non rugged section (which isn’t much now) and whines a bit. So I run to assist and the cycle repeats for the 74th time. She’s fine...just not confident and super weak today. We’ve seen it before and in a day or two should be a bit stronger and more confident again. At least I hope.
I’m under no illusions here. I know the endgame here but I’m hoping to stave that off for as long as possible. Until the bad times overtake the good on the regular or until her quality of life has diminished to the point of her not enjoying life anymore.
She’s on a bunch of supplements that we started her on a year back which have made a tremendous difference so we will keep with that. If it continues to progress worse I’ll take her in to see if there is anything else we can do to help keep it at bay. But I need my beautiful girl here. Losing my 2 boys in the past few years was by far the most gut wrenching experiences of my life...and I went through a miserable divorce that was hell on earth. I’ll take that anyday over saying goodbye to one of the most important things in my life.
So I’m going to try to put the phone down now after my rambling. It’s 3:37 am now and I’m exhausted. I’m hoping Bindi is done for the night and gets some good rest. I’m going to trim her nails and give her a nice leg massage again in the morning after she eats her grub. Tomorrow will be a better day...
Night world.