Latest Development: The Neurologist Said...

Yesterday afternoon, Moki's neurologist call back, unfortunately I missed the actual call, but he did leave me a really detailed voice message. So here is whats happening. The neurologists at UC Davis (all of them) still remain baffled by Moki's condition...

After everyone on the neurological team at UC Davis re-reviewed Moki's case, and still couldn't come up with an answer, the team of specialists at UC Davis came to a group decision to forward a copy of Moki's medical information/file to a doctor in Missouri who specializes in degenerative disease research. This specialist amoung specialist is prepared to review Moki's medical file, and let UC Davis know if he/she can find any degenerative disease(s) based on his/her research efforts, which may explain Moki's neurological condition...

As for the orthopedic surgeon, he is consultating with some human orthopedic surgeons about Moki's case, who reside at the Shriners Children's Hospital. The orthopedic surgeons at UC Davis have never dealt with anything like Moki's thoracic inlet problems before, which currently leaves us in uncharted waters. Hopefully the Shriner's Children's Hospital can make some recommendations on where we should go from here with Moki's thoracic inlet problem based on any similar findings they have seen in human children. In any event, all recommendations at this point, will most likely be for things never yet done/preformed on an animal before. In other words if a procedure can be found, then it just may be the first ever preformed on a thoracic inlet by UC Davis...we'll have to wait and see...

In the meantime, our neurologist and the orthopedic surgeon both want us to continue with Moki's physical therapy. From the sounds of everything going on, it may be awhile before we hear anything more about either Moki's neurological condition, or his orthopedic problem. Moki's neurologist has already forwarded some of the information to the specialist in Missouri, but still has more to bundle up and send.

Currently everyone is doing everything that can be done, and we will just have to keep our fingers crossed that both the specialist in Missouri and the Shriners Children's Hospital can provide some valuable input/insite into Moki's case. In the meantime we are continuing our fundrasing efforts, since at this point, it appears that Moki is going to need more than 10 hydrotherapy treatments, and that the physical therapy for now will be an ongoing thing. We also are trying to prepare for the cost of what is to come next...In addition to the ongoing physical therapy, we are also working with Moki by doing a series of stretches, on a regular basis, trying to get him to loosen up his muscles. Moki holds his muscles really tight and has a very limited ROM (range of motion) as a result. As you can see in the below video, Moki has two problems going on here when he tries to scratch his ear with his back leg. The first problem lies in coordinating the movement from his leg to his ear, the second is caused by having a limited range of motion. (Since Moki's muscles are so tight it is actually hard for him to stretch his back leg long enough to reach his front ear...)

With all that said, while our wait for answers continues, we will not give up hope of finding them, nor will we give up hope of helping Moki. Our motto has thus become, in the event that one door should close, we will seek out and find another door which is open...Thats all for now!