On Thanksgiving Jazmine took Astrid, our beloved beagle, out to pee in the back yard. A stray had wandered into the yard and Astrid took off after the dog to get it out of her yard. Both dogs ran into the street right as a car was coming and got hit. Jazmine, my very pregnant wife, couldn't run fast enough to help Astrid and strained her groin, but is doing fine now. She moved Astrid out of the road and covered her with blankets till I could get home from work a few minutes later.

We rushed Astrid to the hospital. My heart sank when they came out and told me what needed to be fixed and how much it would cost. I had been balling my eyes out worrying she would have to be put down because of internal damage. Praise God all seems well with her organs and hips. We mananged to scrape enough money together to let her stay in the hospital that night thanks to the help of Jazmine's brother Jake.

They splinted her legs and gave her pain meds. Yesterday the hospital was short staffed and the surgeon pulled me in to assist him with cleaning Astrid's wounds and re-splinting her legs. Her right leg is sheared right down to the bone in areas. He had to cut away some damaged tissue. I held her the whole time. I thanked him for letting me help. It made me feel a lot better to help. The surgeon is a heck of a guy. I would take my kids to him.

Sunday she still was not able to come home because of problems with her medication that caused her to go into respiratory arrest and need to be intubated and then placed in a hyperbaric chamber.

Having observered her and spending time with me for four days the surgeon was more upfront with the risk of surgery. Surgery will greatly increase Astrid's risk of amputation, which is what we are trying greatly to avoid. Surgery could be the difference of having a two legged dog versus a very wobbly and slow moving four-legged dog. The surgeon has recommended a treatment that will reduce the risk of infection and speed up recovery (that is currently being projected at two months of confinement) it is called Targeted Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Theraphy. We are very excited to try this non-invasive option.

Astrid came home this morning (Monday) but will have to go back and forth to the get her bandages changed and wounds cleaned twice a week for a least month and then MAYBE that will let us do it at home for the remainder of her recovery. She is still very drugged and we are trying to get her to eat and drink.

Two weeks in... Thank you all so much for your support because of you Astrid was able to get her left ankled pinned where she had lost ligaments and toes. This should enable her to be able to apply pressure to this foot once her wounds are healed now that her ankle is stabilized.

It's so hard to know what to do, which decision is best, especially since the veterinary surgeons calls from the operating room as says, you need to make these decisions right now and oh yeah it's going to cost this much. Astrid has a hard time staying drugged and her breathing seems so labored when the meds kick in, it was nice having a couple of days this week when she was off prescriptions completely. However, now we have started round two.

If we are not able to afford the pins for her broken leg, she will stay in a "spica" , a soft full leg cask, for at least 12 weeks until the bones are "set" she has one bone fragment that is very out of place and could cause some damage, but so far so good. Time is still of the essence but we can only do what we can afford to do. She is still a dog and sometimes it is hard to know just how far to go. We just want to give her the best chance for self mobility and to not being in severe pain for the rest of her doggie life.