Hinckley’s coming home!

It’s been a helluva a week (it’s only been one week?!), but today is the day that Hinckley is coming home!

The ICU staff had a surprise for us yesterday when we visited — Hinckley has gone mobile! They hooked him up to a doggie wheelchair and he raced out to see us in the lobby. I’m not sure who was more excited and proud:  Hinckley, Alex and me, or the ICU team.  It was a really cool moment to see him desperate to grab my flip flop and parade it around to the other guests in the lobby.

We will get our instructions from the doctors this morning for his at-home recovery needs (headed to meet them at 9 a.m.). He will still have the catheter, so that will be something to learn about and deal with, but we will handle it.   We will also get another lesson on his physical therapy routine so we can do those at home to continue to build strengthen and sensation.

We can’t begin pool work/swimming until they remove the sutures and the catheter, but that will definitely be part of his workout routine in the future.

Sensation slllooowwwllly returning

While Dr. Medina was demonstrating the exercises on Thursday, she got a definite jerk response when tickling the fur on his right paw … which was a great sign.  They continue to do the deep pain threshold tests on him as well (very hard pinching or small calipers to test response) and believe they get tremors. Hinck has yet to give them the ‘look’ though, that says “Stop that!” 

Dr. Covey, the surgeon,  cautioned that given how invasive the surgery and with the spinal cord swelling, etc., it is normal for it to take up to two weeks to see feeling return. So the fact we are getting anything five days post surgery is a positive sign. It seems to be getting stronger every day though – last night, as Alex was teasing the fur on his hind legs, Hinck jerked his legs away from him multiple times.  Progress!

And so, the road to recovery begins

Once we get Hinckley home, our next big hurdle is to get Hinckley back on his feet – literally – so that he can soon return to his favorite things, like playing in the water. Here’s him, two weeks ago:

The genuine interest from our friends and families has been tremendous and humbling.  Your thoughtful words and barks of encouragement have been such a help over this past week.  Judging by all the emails, texts and phone calls, everyone wants to know how our boy is doing. And so, I’ve created this blog as a way to keep you updated if you’d like to follow along in our journey. I’m sure Hinckley will have a few words to add here as well once he’s back on home turf.

Ruff,

Hinckley, Laura & Alex