Nellie’s Story

Age at diagnosis: 3.5 years

Breed: Cockapoo

We noticed one morning that Nellie was very hesitant to jump and kept looking at us as though to tell us something was wrong. We took her to our vet and they weren't sure what it was, but gave us pain killers as we thought maybe a pulled muscle after visiting the beach the week before.

She seemed to improve with the painkiller, but a few days later she seemed to go a bit wobbly underfoot and fell over a few times. I just knew something wasn't right - she was so agile usually. Back to the vets and again, nothing showed up on the tests, so they gave antibiotics in case it was a parasite.

We saw progress again with the meds but, as per before, a few days later things worsened again. We took her back to the vet but that morning she was quite bright. My vet told me to go home and that there was nothing wrong with her, despite me telling him that it wasn't normal for her to keep falling over or walk into furniture.

Two days later the head tilt developed, there was no life behind her eyes and she was walking round in circles. She couldn't stand properly and kept falling over. It was horrible. Finally our vet referred us to a specialist. We were referred to Dick White Referrals where she stayed for 4 days undergoing tests - a spinal tap and MRI - along with starting treatment. The MRI showed the right side of her brain was covered in inflammation, meaning the left side of her body stopped working, including losing eyesight.

We were really lucky that she responded pretty much immediately - her eyesight came back within a few days. The whole ordeal was terrifying and also disturbing to see our Nellie deteriorate so fast.

The specialists couldn't be more helpful. It's been 6 months now and Nellie hasn't shown any sign of MUO returning, which is amazing, but I worry about her all the time. She's not quite herself - her confidence really took a knock - but she's a little fighter and we hope she goes on to live a long, happy life.

Nellie is part of The Theo Project's canine meningitis registry - a growing global collection of MUE, MUO and SRMA stories shared to help families facing this diagnosis.