A dog who was paralysed after a spinal stroke has beaten the odds and learned to walk again.
When Megan Donoghue, 23, and her partner Jacob Beesley, 24, noticed their five-year-old shweenie Maggie was shuffling awkwardly around the house, they immediately knew something was wrong.
They took her to the vet, who said Maggie may have just strained something and sent them home.
But just hours afterwards, Maggie’s legs gave out from under her and her back limbs were paralysed.
Megan and Jacob, from St Helen’s, Merseyside, rushed her to Northwest Referrals where vets learned what was really wrong with Maggie – fibrocartilaginous embolism (FCE), which is a sudden onset spine injury.
It occurs when a piece of cartilage from the disc blocks blood flow to the spinal cord, causing a stroke and resulting in paralysis.
Megan, who works as an online chat moderator, said: ‘After scans and tests, they discovered that what they thought was a disc injury was actually a spinal stroke, which there is no cure for.
‘The vets told us that she was the highest grade and that she’d need lots of physiotherapies, but there was no guarantee that she would ever use her back legs again.
‘They even mentioned putting her down. But I just said “She’s only three, I can’t give up on her without doing everything I can”.’
Megan and Jacob, a teaching fellow at Liverpool John Moores University, began a strict routine of therapies straight away.
These included hydrotherapy twice a week, physiotherapy up to twice a week and acupuncture every two weeks.
Megan’s family also helped raise funds to get the pooch a wheelchair.
After months of hard work, it all paid off when Maggie took her first steps unassisted in August.
Megan said: ‘The vet had said that it takes about three months maximum for a dog to recover, so when it passed that point we were not as optimistic.
‘I remember thinking “She’s going to be paralysed forever, this is it now” – it was heartbreaking.
‘But when I saw her walk again I felt so happy – all the time and effort was worth it.
‘Now she runs around the beach, plays with us and her brother Sid – who is a five-year-old white Maltese Shih Tzu. It’s amazing.’
Even though it was a bumpy and costly road for the couple, with Megan and Jacob having to reconsider whether they could afford the £400 a month for her therapies, seeing Maggie run around on the beach and play with the couple’s two-year-old daughter Elodie has made it all worthwhile.
Megan said: ‘I had no idea what FCE even was before this but it can happen so suddenly that people should know about it.
‘We really prioritised consistency, even at the hardest time, which is the reason she’s made such amazing progress.
‘We’ve been ensuring that her quality of life was always the highest it could be and now she’s living the best life she can.’
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