Hero is a five-year-old Belgian Malinois who serves the community as part of the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office. He came to Dr. Moeser after incurring an injury during a training session. Hero presented with severe pelvic limb weakness (paraparesis) resulting in him being unable to walk without support. His neurologic exam findings were consistent with a lesion localization of a T3-L3 myelopathy (spinal cord pathology).
The canine spinal column is divided into functional segments. A letter is used to designate which part of the vertebral column (i.e. C=cervical, T=thoracic, L=lumbar) is affected, followed by the vertebral number within that segment. The lesion localization T3-L3 means the lesion is located somewhere between thoracic vertebra number 3 through lumbar vertebra 3.
In order to determine the exact cause of Hero’s weakness, an MRI of the T3-L3 spinal cord segment was performed, which showed a L1-L2 hydrated nucleus pulposus extrusion (type of disc extrusion) causing severe spinal cord compression. A left L1-L2 hemilaminectomy was performed immediately following MRI. During this procedure Dr. Moeser drilled away bone on the left side of the vertebral column starting at the front part of L1 and ending at the rear part of L2. This drilling away of bone allowed access to the spinal canal and physical decompression of the spinal cord by removing the extruded nucleus pulposus (disc material).
Hero recovered well from the procedure and immediately began to show improvement during the couple days he stayed at the hospital. While it will take some time and rehabilitation work, we are extremely optimistic that Hero will be able to return to duty servicing the community.
