Day seven....
Visited Lili this morning, and within literally seconds of pulling up outside the vets surgery I was struck with a migraine. (The type where you're rendered half blind with a brain freeze headache that causes nausea, numbness, dizziness, all kinds of horrible symptoms - talk about kick me when I'm down haha!) Luckily the visual disturbance passed as we were with Lili so I could see well enough to drive home safely and I managed to enjoy the visit with her despite the pain trying to get in and spoil it.
Everything went well, a new nurse said she's doing really well and said this morning Lili pooped on the grass outside and apparently that's a really good sign.
Didn't get a chance to express her because she'd already been done earlier in the morning and her bladder wasn't full. Plus with the feeling going in my hands/arms from the migraine it was probably divine intervention stepping in to stop me making another failed attempt and stressing us all out. I've been researching online though, and I'm hoping tomorrow I'll get to try a different technique which seems a bit easier and may yield better results.
She was super happy again, making her usual noises, scoffing down everything I bought for her and sitting up more again. Plus she was scooting around to get closer to us and stuff - she's pretty fast for a dog with uncooperative hind legs haha!
Apparently she's not in any pain (that the Metacam doesn't control) and the nurse says she's seen her wag her tail a couple of times, usual in the mornings. So I'm really pleased, and just hoping that I'll be able to maintain and advance her progress at home. She's being such a good girl, and apparently she's in a kennel opposite the little Dashie who's really struggling with her recovery. Hoping that Lili will give her some doggie-to-doggie encouragement haha!
All being well, we're going to bring her home tomorrow. Couldn't do it today because the migraine (and I've spent most of the day trying to sleep it off so there's still a few things left to do in the house) and the nurse said it'd be better to take her on a week day because I can have a chat with the vet again before going and there will be better opening hours for them to step in again should I have trouble with her bladder or anything.
Feeling nervous about bringing her home to be honest, but I'm hoping that getting back to the familiar will be the boost she needs to speed up her recovery. I guess only time will tell...
Here she is today....It's becoming a challenge to get a good shot of her because she's too excitable and looking around at every passing noise. I'm taking that as a good sign.
@bizzylizzy - You're right! Thinking is always worse than the actual "doing". I really hope that once she comes home she'll want to get back into her old habits and that will encourage her to push a bit harder to get back on her feet. I think she's probably so bewildered at the vets that it's possible slowing things down a bit....I guess we'll see. Thank you so much for the words of positivity.
@Markr64 - Thank you. I'm glad you can see the improvement in her. I really hope so too.
@MillicentWight @CountryGirl - Thank you both so much, I'm looking forward to being able to share positive progress with you once she's home.
@ Minimoo - Thank you for sharing your story, the more dogs I hear about overcoming this, the more I believe that Lili will too. I really hope she does as well as Kizzy did.

Thank you!
@Jaysmumagain - Yep, it is. There are so many positive stories of dogs coming through this, each and everyone helps me believe that Lili will do the same. That's so true. I need to keep focused on the little goals and how far she's come. While there's a long long way to go yet, and no guarantees of anything, so far I feel like we've been really lucky. You're right, regardless of how nervous and worried I am, she's going to be happy to be home (although she'll probably be annoyed that she's confined to a playpen haha!) and that will hopefully go a long way to getting her back to rights. Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement. I hope over the next weeks there'll be good things to share here.
@ejp - That's a very good point. I really hope things will click into place, I'm determined to do my best to get through even the most difficult days. Thank you for the encouragement.