Cecil the dog makes a comeback!

Cecil is scooting, staggering and skipping around. Like a newborn colt or like a drunk sailor, depending on your point of view.

What Happened to Cecil Memorial Day Weekend

Hello dear friends!

As many of you may know Cecil has been a part of my family for a couple years now. Rescued from Katrina and brought to the Bay Area, where I adopted him, he is the first dog I have ever had. Dog ownership has been both surprisingly amazing and surprisingly complicated and has taught me to appreciate what is beautiful and unique about life--both human and otherwise.

This last New Year's Eve while Omar and I (and our good friend, Beth) were in Lake Tahoe, Cecil, excited about seeing snow perhaps for the first time, ran onto the highway and was hit by an SUV. Miraculously, he survived. He was bruised and battered and lacerated and dazed, and he looked like Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull. But, he was alive, and the emergency vet that we took him to found no injuries besides the superficial ones. In time he healed, and looked and acted as good as new.

Having come so close--at least in our own minds--to losing Cecil, we became aware of how special he was to us, almost like a person that we would miss and mourn in the same way. We treasured him in the first few days of the New Year and tried to hold on to that feeling for as long as we could.

Over this past Memorial Day Weekend, Cecil experienced another catastrophic health problem--he seems to have a knack for it on holidays. An irregularity in his spine–which may be related to the accident–caused one of the disks in his vertebrae to burst. The effects of the pressure on his spinal cord were visible almost immediately. At first Cecil seemed sick, yelping, which he never does. Then his walking became labored, and eventually, to our shock, he couldn't walk at all. He was obviously in an excruciating amount of pain and it was all that we could do to get him in the truck to take him to the vet. After the initial examination and a consultation with a neurosurgeon (yes, I also was not aware that there were dog neurosurgeons) we were faced with a very grim decision. Cecil needed an operation to remove the disk; if not, not only would he never recover the use of his hind legs, he would live the remainder of his life in excruciating pain. The paralysis would probably spread to his other limbs. To do nothing, then, would necessitate an immediate decision to put him down. But the operation was beyond what we would have ever imagined spending on our dog. We discussed and at one point had even seriously considered euthanizing him (what's known on the veterinary street as "economic euthanasia"), not knowing what the total bill would be and how we would ever afford it. But when we thought of all the times that Cecil had been there to cheer us up or make us happy with his lust for life, and his big heart and all of his quirks, it would have been like losing a part of ourselves. We put the expense on a new credit card and hoped for the best.

The good news is that Cecil is now home and recovering. He is slowly regaining the use of his back legs, the pain seems to be gone–despite the zipper-like suture along his back–and he is expected to make a nearly perfect recovery. He scoots and wanders around the house like a drunken sailer–with us cheering him on every moment of improvement.

Of course, we are happy and relieved to have Cecil home. We know that we made the right decision. Cecil has survived a lot in his four and a half years--the flood, the car, the disk, and a dozen little crises in between--and in a way, he has become a symbol for both Omar and I of endurance, faith and love. I am asking my friends and family to please consider this year, instead of Christmas and Birthday presents, to set a little aside to offset the cost of saving the beautiful being known as Cecil.

This happened back in January (resurrected from a diary)

We had a harrowing New Year's in the snow. It was beautiful and we did go snowshoeing, but an SUV ran over my dog. Literally. I guess I should be thankful it was an SUV as my dog did not get crushed by any tires nor impacted by a bumper. But he did get thrown to the ground and rolled around and as you can see, got pretty fucked up, including a big fat black eye. I guess, we'll have to wait and see.

I can't really say much more, except that I feel really guilty (he should have been on a leash) and really thankful (I saw it all happen and thought for sure he was a goner) and really pissed (the SUV never stopped despite the fact that I was screaming my head off on the side of the road).

There's a big storm that came in last night. It's got all of us a little down after the rush of escaping death. Everyone is feeling all mopey and gloomy. Recovery can't be easy.

Here is a video I once made about Cecil