Daphne is doing well today. Her neurologic function is similar to what it was last night. Her gait improved over the course of yesterday; she seems to be swaying less as she walks. She is still mildly weak and ataxic, though, and we are still walking her with a sling to make sure she doesn’t fall.

Here is a tidbit from her exam this morning, and a brief explanation of proprioception. Proprioception is our ability to tell where our limbs are in space without looking at them. (If you close your eyes, you still know where your hands and feet are.) It is one of the first neurologic abilities to be lost with spinal cord compression. On her first day home, her proprioception was normal in her left hind paw but slow in her right. Yesterday it had improved to normal in both feet!

Checking proprioception. This shows that a signal is getting from her foot, through her spinal cord, to her brain and then back through her spinal cord to her foot. Her foot is telling her brain that it is turned over and her brain is telling her foot to flip back to a normal position.