seizure

How is “thingy” a word? My spellcheck thinks it’s fine, but it doesn’t like “itty-bitty”

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We have a new itty-bitty wireless keyboard to help run our computer/TV/media center thingy.  Super cute.  I took a couple of pictures, but they both turned out blurry (’cause I suck at taking pictures), so I’ll show you the one with a teaspoon next to it for some perspective.

Oh, better picture.  Here’s that little keyboard on top of my laptop keyboard.

The gyroscopic mouse is next on the list of techie things to buy.  This mouse app on my phone is getting a little old.

Can we have another night with another hour back?  Today was a really nice, long day, and I could use another extra hour before tomorrow morning.

I’m sorry I have nothing of interest to say, and that’s probably a sign that I should click that Publish button over there, but I don’t think I’m going to pay any attention to that sign.

(“It’s a sign.” “You don’t believe in signs.”)  Name that movie?  And maybe win another tote?  (Damn, I should really mail that tote to Holly….  Sorry, Holly.  I’m a deadbeat.  In the mail this week!)

Update for recordkeeping: Roxy just had a seizure.  She’s okay, as usual, but if I don’t put it here, I won’t remember it next time.  We’ve got her upstairs now, and she’s curled up on the floor by my side of the bed.  Being cute.

Must. Tell. Someone.

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I’m bursting with news, but it’s all about work, so a) the Internet at large doesn’t care (not that the Internet at large cares about anything I write, reads me regularly (or at all), or even knows I’m here (Goodness.  Pity party much?  Move along, please.)), and 2) I will NOT go into detail about work stuff here.

Also, with a little perspective, it’s just not that exciting.

So.  Other stuff to talk about.  Thanksgiving plans?  Don’t have any yet.  All we’ve decided for sure is that we don’t want to have a big gathering (last year took a lot out of us), and traveling for the holiday may be difficult since John doesn’t automatically get the day after Thanksgiving off from work.  And we’re saving vacation days.  Big trip coming up.  And we like running that 5K on Thanksgiving morning.  That’s the extent of the discussion so far.

The band is practicing tonight, so I let the dogs come upstairs with me.  Roxy curled up on the floor next to my side of the bed.  She either fell asleep immediately or she’s faking it so I won’t make her go downstairs once the guys leave.  She might really be that tired.  She had two seizures yesterday, one around noon and one around 11 last night.  She’s fine now, but I think she could use a little extra love.  We may try letting the two of them sleep up here tonight.  I’m sure they’ll only make it an hour or so before one of them decides to stick a cold nose in my face.  That’s when I’ll shoo them back downstairs.  Happens every time.

Not the best Saturday ever

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For a number of reasons, today kinda sucks.  It could be worse (it could be SO much worse), but it’s not what I wish for when I look forward to my weekends.  I’m working, John’s working, we’ve been camped out at the dining room table for most of the day, sitting across from each other with our heads buried in our laptops, and that’s not really the part that kinda sucks.  Mostly, it’s exhaustion. Roxy had another seizure last night, around 11pm, and this time, neither of us could go back to sleep until after 1am.  Out the window went our plans (my plan, anyway – not sure if that was John’s plan, too) to run this morning.  Instead, we slept until nearly ten.  Not good sleep.  Woke up feeling like we hadn’t slept at all, and since we have no milk in the house,  I went to Dunkin Donuts to pick up breakfast.  (Yes, no milk = bagels.  And Starbucks.  It does not equal go to the store and buy milk since you have to leave the house either way, dumbass.)  The Dunkin Donuts in our tiny town is the WORST Dunkin Donuts.  This morning was it – I’m never going to that one again.  This time, before ten am on a Saturday, they were out of plain bagels, out of plain cream cheese, and they didn’t give me the hash browns I paid for, even though they repeated the order back to me three times AND they’re on the receipt.  They’ve screwed up our order lots of times, they make terrible coffee, and they even manage to screw up iced chai.  John tells me (and I know this – I’ve been to others) that this Dunkin Donuts is not representative of the whole company, but still.  This one?  Dead to me.  That, on top of no sleep, on top of the half-hour wait at Starbucks (It may have only been 10 minutes, but it felt longer.  At least they got my order right.), all BEFORE breakfast, with no run to clear my head or make me feel virtuous for exercising when I’m eating a not-healthy breakfast, followed by WORKING makes today not the greatest Saturday.

Also, my head hurts.

Also also, I might feel better if I’d showered this morning.  I swear, that’s happening soon.

Also also also, I didn’t like the book I just finished (finally), The Emperor’s Children, so that may have been contributing to this mood.  I couldn’t even escape into my book!

I hear birdies and their wheels are bare

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I haven’t pointed you guys here in a while, but hopefully you’ve found your own way.  In case you need a nudge, check out today’s post.  Level 3 makes me laugh and cringe at the same time, particularly near the end of the section.

I solved my focus problem at work today (answer: work closely with someone else), but I’m totally worn out.  So for now, for tonight, no internet, no TV.

Wait – almost forgot.  Roxy had a seizure last night around 11pm (which might explain some of the tiredness).  She’s fine now, and the seizure itself was pretty normal.  Just one, no cluster.  Her last one was somewhere  between 10 days and two weeks ago, I think.  I’m not sure because I didn’t write it down or call the vet to let them know.  I don’t know why I didn’t.  I just let it slip.  ‘Cause, you know, I don’t care about my dog.  Clearly.  Poor puppy.

Things I Learned About My Dogs This Weekend

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  1. Both dogs are pretty good in the car.  It helps that it’s only a three-hour drive.
  2. Roxy can’t be trusted off her leash when there’s no fence.
  3. Riley can.
  4. Except when Roxy takes off.  Then he goes with her and loses his hearing.
  5. Roxy is great in the house and with other dogs, mostly because she’s totally indifferent to everybody.
  6. Riley is a challenge in the house.  Not the greatest houseguest.
  7. That’s putting it politely.  He was nervous and Mabel (the resident dog) thought he was challenging her authority (he probably was).
  8. Then he peed on the sliding glass door.  From the outside (small miracles).  In front of everyone.

John and I went to visit his parents this weekend.  Normally, we wouldn’t have brought the dogs, but I forgot about this trip until last weekend, and by then, the kennel was fully booked.  So it was either stay home with the dogs (we can’t use a pet-sitter anymore) and have John go by himself (the point of the trip was so  he (and his brother, coming from Connecticut) could help his dad do some car stuff) or figure out how to handle the complications of bringing the dogs.

Complication #1: John’s parents have a dog who, the one time they met, didn’t get along all that well with Riley.  We think it might be because they first sniffed each other out in the kitchen, Riley’s territory, and not somewhere slightly more neutral, like the yard.

Complication #2: No fence.  They have an invisible fence, and while Mabel has a collar and is trained to it, our dogs are not.

Complication #3: We needed a secure place to lock Roxy up if we all went out so she’d be separated from the other dogs and unable to hurt herself if she were to have a seizure.

Complication #4: Is it really okay if we bring the dogs?  I don’t want to force our animals into anyone else’s household.

All of these issues have solutions (say hello in the yard, keep them on their leashes, use Mabel’s old crate, be direct and ask the question), and after I talked with my mother-in-law, I felt better about most of them, so we decided to try it (obviously).  We’re not in any hurry to do it again, but at least we know it’s possible.  I think Mabel was happy to see us go.  🙂  I know Roxy and Riley are happy to be back home.

Update: Apparently, Roxy was SO happy to be home she went into convulsions.  Just one seizure, it’s been about two and half weeks since the last one, and I’m relieved she waited until we got home to do it.  I can only imagine having to deal with this on the side of the road with a frantic Riley.  She’s in the last stages of getting back to normal right now.

Fixed!

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Today, we took Step One in the Cancel the Cable Already! Plan.  Actually, we took Step 1 a few days ago when we ordered the Roku.  It arrived today, we set it up, we’ve tested it out, and tonight we’re going to watch a movie.  How exactly does this help us in the Cancel the Cable Already! Plan?  Um…I won’t be DVRing movies from Comcast anymore.  It doesn’t help with current TV, either.  Really, I think it’s a mindset change.  We have a Roku!  Next step is to put together a nice-looking, unobtrusive computer that can live near the TV and provide the link to the internet.  Soon.

Speaking of the internet, we had to go to our local Comcast office this morning to pick up a new modem.  That fixed our connection problem.  I’m so relieved.  I didn’t want to have to wait until Monday night for a technician to show up (or not show up) and then tell us they can’t fix our problem (which is what they were saying on the phone last night).

A little housekeeping, figuratively speaking: Roxy had four seizures in 15 minutes Thursday night (late, of course).  The vet probably considers that one seizure.  She hasn’t had any since then, so technically, I think it doesn’t count as a cluster.  She desperately needed a bath after that, so I brushed 2 tons of hair of her (the furminator is awesome), and then gave her a bath on the deck this afternoon.  She’s all clean and sparkly now.

Some literal housekeeping: I helped John sort and clean out a big part of the basement today.  We boxed up all of our inventory books and stacked them in a corner, got rid of some trash, put a few more things aside for donation, and rearranged the whole east side, giving the band more room in their corner and making it easier for John to get to his weight bench.  More importantly, John used the shop vac to get rid of a lot of dust and a TON of dog hair.  The basement looks a whole lot better, unfinished as it is, when it’s not coated in dog hair.  I could say that about everything, I think.  Except dogs.

I left my brain on vacation

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I’m home, but I seem to have misplaced my brain.  I left the house this morning to go to Wegman’s and then pick up the dogs from the kennel, and I didn’t want to carry my purse, so I loaded my pockets with the essentials: grocery list, cell phone, keys.  Notice anything missing?  I didn’t, not until I was in the checkout line with half of the groceries already bagged and in the cart.  I reached into my pocket for my wallet, and hey!  Not there.  Not even in the car.  The checkout girl was super nice (she said it happens all the time), and she told me she’d finish ringing everything up, suspend the sale, and leave the groceries for me at the customer service desk.  I still felt like an idiot.  So I raced home (not too quickly, though – the last thing I needed was to get pulled over for speeding and then have to say, “Why, no, Officer, I don’t have my license with me…can I explain?”), grabbed my wallet, raced back to Wegman’s, and then stood in front of the customer service desk for over five minutes while the woman behind the counter discussed her personal problems with someone on the phone.  I rescued my groceries and went to pick up the dogs, both of whom said hi to random strangers in the lobby of the kennel before bothering to give me a hello sniff.  Ungrateful animals.  Who I am SO happy to be home with.  (Roxy had a seizure while at the kennel Monday afternoon, so they moved her to the vet side for observation until today.  She’s fine.)

I’m wearing my glasses today instead of my contacts, and my eyes have been sending signals to the sleep centers of my brain for hours now (“No contacts! That means it’s bed time.  You’re getting very sleepy…”), but I’m fighting the urge to nap.  It’s too late in the day for that.  Perfect time for a walk, though.

Bloodbath

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Roxy is fine.  Thought I’d start with that, since that’s pretty much how John started a phone call to me late at night on the first Monday I was in Rhode Island.  That’s two weeks ago now.  John got home from work that night and everything was fine.  He went out to rehearsal at Will’s place just before seven and got back right around ten.  He said both dogs met him at the door, as usual, wagging their tails and looking stupidly happy, as usual.  But Roxy was soaking wet all around her neck.  And then he saw this:

And this:

\

And lots more.  Those two pictures are of opposite corners of the first floor of our house.  There was blood EVERYwhere.  It was on the dishwasher, the blinds, the walls, all over the floor, the couch, and, of course, the dog.  Who was fine (and not really bleeding anymore).  John spent a couple of hours cleaning up, and then he brought Roxy upstairs to sleep and left Riley downstairs.  Roxy spent all of Tuesday at the vet, who didn’t have much to say.  She had a shallow gash along her shoulder, which apparently bleeds like a scalp wound would on a person.  As far as we can tell, Roxy had a seizure while John was a rehearsal and Riley did his crazy holding her down thing and in all the thrashing around, managed to scrape her shoulder.  Blood flew during the seizure, I’d imagine, and then Roxy did her recovery thing, which consists of her wandering aimlessly around the first floor, rubbing on everything and bumping into every hard surface.  This time, she tracked (and rubbed) blood all over everything within reach.

She really is fine.  John said she wasn’t bleeding anymore by the time he got her into the bathtub.  The vet didn’t even have to shave her.  We realized we can’t leave the two of them loose in the house when we’re not home after this, and so we can’t use the pet-sitting service anymore.  We can crate them while we’re at work or when we go out, but if we’re out of town, we can’t crate them all day and all night except for the three hours a day the pet-sitter is visiting.  Maybe if we had a house-sitter…  Luckily, the kennel had an opening (two – they have to be boarded in separate runs now, too) for the RI trip, so John left them there Wednesday morning and came to see me Wednesday night.

While I’m documenting seizures, she had that one Monday night two weeks ago (6/14), another short one the following Tuesday night (6/15), and she had one yesterday around noon (6/27).  Short, we were home, no big deal.  Every person who answers the phone at our vet’s office knows who we are.  I called this morning to update her file with yesterday’s seizure, and all I had to do was say just that: “This is Susannah, and I’m calling to update Roxy’s chart.”  They used to have to ask for my last name, my phone number, all that stuff, but not anymore.  On a positive note, two weeks ago she only had two seizures in a row, 24 hours apart instead of 12.  This time, she had one yesterday around noon and hadn’t had another one by the time I left for work this morning.  She seems to have broken the three-in-a-row-12-hours-apart pattern.  Yay!

Plants and animals

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Because my boss can be pretty cool sometimes, I didn’t have to go to work today.  I had a long long list of things I could/should do, and I had great plans to do them.  And then I didn’t.  Well, I did a few of them.  Actually, I did nine out of nineteen, and to be fair to me, some of those things were meant for later in the weekend.  Okay, I did plenty today.  But I didn’t run and I didn’t go to the grocery store and I kept my out-of-the-house errands to a minimum because Roxy had a “welcome home” seizure last night before midnight and another one this morning, shortly before noon.  She’s fine now, but somewhat groggy (we’re under instructions to give her extra medicine after seizures to help prevent clusters – clearly didn’t work last night – and that makes her woozy), so I thought it would be best if I stayed close to home.

One of the few errands I did run today took me to Home Depot.  John needed grass seed, and while I was there, I bought a rosemary plant and an oregano plant ’cause MY FACE POTS WERE DELIVERED!  Yay!  And I already have a basil plant, so I’ll put all three into my new pots and put them…somewhere…to grow.  The deck, maybe?  I could put them on a plant stand on the front porch (if I had a plant stand.  I think I just added that to my shopping list for the weekend.).  I definitely can’t put them anywhere in the yard.  The rabbits will get them.  Like they’ve already eaten the three (maybe it was four) black-eyed susan plants that came back this year.  I need plants rabbits don’t like.

What to do?

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John left Roxy with the vet for observation today, and she had another couple of seizures this afternoon.  When I last talked to John, he was racing out of the office to get there before the doctor left so he could talk to her about Roxy.  I just finished putting together a list with dates and details of all the seizures she’s had in the last year and a half.  It’s a long list.  John is more and more convinced that Riley isn’t being a nice doggie when he goes after her neck with his teeth (or “holds her down with the only tools he has at his disposal so she won’t hurt herself.”  However you like to look at it).  He might be trying to kill the demon that’s taken over his darling Roxy.  I’m waiting by the phone for John to call, either from the vet or when he gets home.  And I’m hungry, so I’m going to eat while I wait.  Nothing particularly entertaining is coming to mind, so I’ll just go away and fret.  And eat.

Update: John is home with both dogs, and Roxy’s doing okay for now.  John has extra medicine and instructions on what to do if she has more seizures in the next couple of days.  He’s going to try to work from home tomorrow so he can keep an eye on her.  I feel better after talking to him (and after eating), and then I went to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks and couldn’t stop giggling.  On to Passive Aggressive Notes for more giggling.  Hire taller staff!

And here: this sounds like a huge undertaking, but it would probably end up being the only cookbook anyone who isn’t already a brilliant chef would ever use again.  Too bad no one is working on it.

It might be the happiest place in Georgia

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I would still call DisneyWorld the happiest place on earth (me and fifteen trillion of my closest friends), but I think the Coke museum in Atlanta (now The World of Coca-Cola) is the happiest place in Georgia.  (Ask me again after I go to the aquarium.)  I love Coke.  Me and Coke are buddies.  We like to hang out.

My class got out a little earlier than expected, so I headed out of the windowless training room on the 9th floor (windowless, yes, but NOT in a basement – big improvement) hoping to go for a run.  I got off the elevator to cloudy skies, but I was still hopeful.  Cloudy just means it’ll be cooler without the sun beating down on me.   Then I got outside.  Raining.  Hard.  Annoyed.  (Me, not the rain, although who knows?)  Then I had a brilliant idea.  I’m in Atlanta, it’s only 4pm, it’s raining, and I’m mere blocks away from a shrine to the only soft drink worthy of the name.  So I went – by myself – and joined a tour group and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours looking at all the Coke stuff, watching the videos, watching a ton of Coke commercials, and tasting many (not nearly all) of the really disgusting Coke products they manage to sell around the world.  On my way out (funneled, of course, through the gift shop, where I showed admirable restraint and did NOT buy myself a t-shirt), they handed me a Coke.  🙂

In sadder news, Roxy had a seizure this morning.  John said it was a cluster seizure, and she was in the middle of it when he came back in from his morning run.  Riley had done his holding her down thing, there was hair everywhere, and he’d slobbered all over her neck.  (No blood.)  John talked to our vet this afternoon, and she apparently jumped to the conclusion that the new medicine isn’t working and that Roxy needs an MRI (costs at least $1000 according to her (the vet, not Roxy)).  I’m not sure why she (the vet) went there so quickly, though.  Roxy’s only been on the new meds for a month and off the old meds for only three weeks, and in that time she’s had basically two episodes.  That sounds pretty promising to me.  So we’re going to ignore the vet for the time being.  (That’s a strange phrase.  Time being.  I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I don’t think I’ve ever written it down.  Looks too weird.)

It got late before I realized it, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet, so I’m out of here.

Updated to add Roxy’s second set of seizures for the day.  Three this time.  John may be leaving her with the vet for observation tomorrow, since he can’t stay home with her.

I’m gonna make it this time

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I may have mentioned before how much I don’t like the hours I’m keeping for work.  And how I have to get up at 5am and by the time I get home (about 6:30 today), there’s barely time for me to eat dinner and say hi to John before I need to get to bed again.  And I’ve been shooting for being in bed by 9.  Hasn’t happened in several weeks, but I keep trying.  I can tell it’s getting bad when the only thought in my head when I get up in the morning is “how long before I can go back to bed” and my favorite daydream involves a nap.  Tonight is my best shot at making the 9pm goal yet.

All of that is my way of saying this is going to be short.  Two things:

  1. Roxy had another seizure last night.  Still just one, no clusters, but her recovery time was back to about 45 minutes, and there was no sign of the hyper dog.  She’s fine now, and she was fine before we went back to bed.  I was half expecting this sort of thing to happen, since we are taking her off of a pretty potent medication and moving her to a new one.  Of course, the late night seizures two nights in a row aren’t helping me sleep.  I got about 5 hours last night.  But this particular item was not about me.  🙂  Roxy’s fine for now.  I’m keeping the vet updated.
  2. This one is about me.  Mostly.  And I’m going to be a big dork and not at all cool about this.  You ready?  Jenny, The Bloggess herself, COMMENTED ON MY SITE!  For real!  Go look at yesterday’s post.  Of course, all of a sudden I felt this incredible pressure to be funny in my reply to her comment.  I failed miserably (I’m not funny on command), but I tried really hard.  Anyway, how cool is that?

Tomorrow is Friday.

A change in the pattern

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Roxy had a seizure last night, but it didn’t follow the pattern she’s established over the last few months.  We woke up to the sound of her convulsing at the bottom of the stairs.  I’d only been asleep for less than an hour (it was just about 11pm), but I guess it was a deep sleep already ’cause it took me WAY too long to figure out what was happening.  John got downstairs before me and was trying to get a pillow under her head.  The seizure lasted the usual amount of time (over 30 seconds, under a minute), and when it was over, she stayed on the floor, on her side, for a little bit (again as usual) but after only 3 or 4 minutes, definitely less than five, she got up.  That’s way quicker than usual, and instead of getting up and being completely out of it for another 20 minutes or more, she was almost completely herself.  Actually, she was herself and a little more.  She seemed a bit manic.  Over-excited.  Hyper, kind of.  But she answered to her name, she sat when I asked her to, she begged for treats…she was basically normal.  So after another ten minutes or so, we went back to bed.

Why is she different?  I can only assume it’s the change in her medication.  We started the zonisamide last Monday night (the 12th) and started giving her half of her usual phenobarbitol dose at the same time.  This past Monday (the 19th), we cut out the phenobarbitol altogether.  Hopefully, we’ll go back to infrequent seizures (or non-existent) on the new medication.  Hopefully.  Last night’s wasn’t a cluster seizure, either, and we’ll just have to see if she has any more today.

Not as bad

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Today was not as bad as yesterday.  Different, certainly.  And I kind of forced it to be better.  The day still started too early, and I was still on my feet all day, but after I collapsed into a chair during our lunch break, my coworker brought my sandwich to me, unasked, so I could spend the entire break off my feet.  He’s a nice guy. I had already decided not to run today (SO hot outside), so that automatically freed up some time once I got home, but unfortunately, about an hour of it was taken up by work stuff that came up during my commute.  (It kinda sucks when your whole team is spread out across all four time zones.  We all rely on each other, and that means we have to be available when the guy in Seattle needs help (for example).)  I’d planned to take the dogs to the dog park, but by the time I was free to go, it was almost sunset (when the dog park closes).  So that was out.  I spent some time with them in the yard, but it’s not the same.  (For them.  It’s about the same for me.)  Anyway, I forced my day to be better by making sure I had time to myself (and I ordered Indian (my favorite) for dinner).  I thought I’d make it Internet time, but it turned into TV time instead.  I watched a couple of shows John has never been interested in.  He gave up on Flashforward after the third episode (I should have), and he never even started Cougar Town.  Stupid name, but I like the show.

I’m having DVR priority issues again.  Why does every show I want to see come on Tuesdays at 10?  We record Southland and The Good Wife every week, and we want to keep up with V, but it comes on at the same time.  So annoying.  We’ll have to resort to hulu.com for V, I guess.  (Yes, we watch a lot of TV.  Someday, I’ll list our shows by night they get recorded, which is a mostly meaningless piece of information to me.  I don’t care when it’s on.  I just want to make sure it gets recorded so we can watch it later.  The DVR is the greatest invention EVER.)

Anyway, it’s after nine and I need to head in the direction of bed.  Which reminds me…I’m expecting my sleep to be interrupted tonight.  John said Roxy had a seizure this morning before he left for work.  Normal length, and it was a cluster (one followed by another), and if she follows her pattern, she’s already a little overdue for the next one.   We’re still investigating switching her to a new medication.  We’re looking for other (cheaper) ways we can get it.

Oh, was that John’s car door?  He mentioned he might get out of class early tonight…

Yeah, not his car door.  A neighbor’s.  I’m tired and I need to go to bed, but I just started to browse through my regular sites and I miss having time to play on the Internet. Yes, I’ve said it before, and yes, I could have this evening if I’d skipped all the TV, but it’s too late now, and I’m tired.  So, Internet, I’m sorry I’m neglecting you.  Forgive me?

I knew it was coming

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I was expecting it, I really was, but it still took me by surprise.  Roxy had another seizure (two, really – a cluster) about 9:15 last night.  Since December, she’s had a seizure every two to three weeks, and each one has been followed by a second one within 12-18 hours.  And in most cases, one of each pair has been a cluster seizure.  We raised her dosage about a month ago (I think), and I’m keeping the vet up to date.  I don’t think they have any solutions for us.

Up early

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I guess I was awake anyway, and getting up at 5:15 is something I need to start getting used to, but I wasn’t ready for that this morning.  I heard something, and pretty soon after that something resolved into the sound of Roxy convulsing.  I dashed downstairs and found her under the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Poor thing.  I pulled the gate off of her, made sure her head was free, and waited it out.  It was a normal seizure, no cluster this time, and she took her usual half hour to shake it off.

We were both up and irretrievably awake, so running, breakfast, and getting to work all happened a little earlier than usual.  Not a bad thing, I guess.  We took the dogs for a long walk yesterday afternoon (I really like taking walks with John.  And the dogs.  I need to convince him that we should make it a habit.  Even if it’s just a weekend habit.  I like it.), so my legs weren’t completely unprepared for this morning’s run.  I was a little stiff, but it felt really good.  Best thing?  It wasn’t cold.  Yay!

Again

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Roxy had another seizure this morning, just after 4am.  I expected another one, but I was kinda hoping for some time after we woke up.  It was a short one, and her recovery was ridiculously quick, like 5 minutes.  She got up from convulsing, walked around the kitchen a little already wagging her tail, and then asked to go out.  I let her outside (and kept Riley in with me).  She left the deck and came right back up a few seconds later and asked to come in.  Once inside, she started hinting heavily that she wanted a treat, so I made her sit and lie down for it, which she did with her regular enthusiasm.  She seemed normal again already, so I went back to bed.

She’s fine this morning, but I’m going to crate them both during the day so I can tell for sure if she has another seizure.  If she does, I have an appointment scheduled to take her to the vet this evening.  Fun day.  I wish I could stay home.

My poor puppy

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Sometimes I really love my vet.  Roxy had two seizures (cluster again) when I got home from work.  She started to act a little weird, then like she couldn’t stay on her feet, then normal.  About a minute later, she started to lose her balance again, and then she fell over and started convulsing.  I was right there, so I could keep her head from banging on the floor over and over, and I could keep Riley off of her, ’cause he tried to do whatever it is he does.  He hasn’t been my favorite dog tonight.  Anyway, she convulsed for 30 seconds or so (maybe 20 – it’s really hard to tell), and then it was over, but she gave that high-pitched whine, the one that says something hurts BAD.  She got her feet under her and headed for the family room in a hurry (she was in front of the pantry before), but when she got to the front window, she hit the floor again for more convulsing.  When that was over, she tried to get to her feet again, but couldn’t.  I helped her up, and since then (about an hour), she’s been wandering around the house.  Slowly getting better.  A few minutes ago she nosed around my dinner, so a full recovery shouldn’t be too far away.

Anyway, the vet.  About ten minutes after the cluster seizure, I called the vet to get Roxy’s file updated.  Told them about the seizures, told them she’s still recovering, and they told me to call them if I need them (they’re open until 8pm), and they’ll leave a note for our vet to call us tomorrow.  Nice, but routine.  About ten minutes ago, they called back.  Just to check in.  Because they’re nice people.  They were closing for the night and the vet tech wanted to see how Roxy’s recovery was going.  She reminded me that even though our vet doesn’t get in until 8am tomorrow morning, they open at 7, so I can call or we can come in if we need to.  And the emergency vet is always an option if we need it.  I love them because they called.

Why is Riley not my favorite dog right now?  Let us count the ways:

  1. He had his teeth on Roxy’s neck when the first seizure started.
  2. He tried to get her again during that seizure.
  3. He snapped and snarled at her in the kitchen while she was recovering.
  4. He barked meanly at her in the family room, also during recovery.

I was right there each time, and I yelled at him each time.  If the teeth on the neck thing is doggy instinct trying to hold her down, that’s one thing.  But the snapping, snarling, and barking is just mean.  She wasn’t in his way, she wasn’t stealing his food, she wasn’t even stealing his attention.  I make an effort to pay attention to him even when she’s recovering precisely so he doesn’t get jealous.  He doesn’t always react this badly, either.  I don’t know what his problem is tonight.  And yes, I’ve forgiven him already.  I don’t think his pea brain would remember why I was mad at him, if I still were.  If he ever knew.

Oh, good, Roxy’s normal again.  She shook her whole body and when she was done, she came over to me, tail wagging, tongue out, looking happy, and begged for food.

I just remembered the one thing that annoys me about our vet.  She’s going to push the really expensive dog medicine again.  We can’t afford to spend $300 a month on medicine for the dog.  And that’s just one of the three medicines she takes daily.  Who can afford that?  But she’s my puppy….

Eventful

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Woke up this morning feeling super lazy.  The dogs didn’t agree, so after a few minutes of listening to the frantic clicking of nails on the floor as they rushed back and forth from the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen and back, I got up, let them out, and then climbed back into bed.  About 20 minutes later, we heard attack-dog sounds from the backyard.  That’s occasionally a sign that Roxy is having a seizure, but since they were in the backyard, it could have been their response to a dog right outside the fence or something.  Either way, we didn’t like it, so we rushed outside.  The sounds had stopped, but Roxy was having a seizure and Riley was slobbering/chewing on her neck.  He does that sometimes (and has since the beginning).  The good-dog interpretation is that he thinks he needs to hold her still or hold her down or something and, lacking hands, he uses his mouth.  The bad-dog interpretation is that he senses weakness and goes in for the kill.  We’re 99% sure we can go with theory #1 (partly because it’s pretty clear that Riley loves her most of the time and partly because he always slobbers/gnaws at the back her neck, not her throat), but we don’t like it, so John grabbed Riley away from Roxy.  (Also, I’ve seen the attack-dog sounds come from Roxy, not Riley, who’s in mid-seizure, has no idea what’s going on, and quite naturally doesn’t want anyone chewing on her.)

Anyway.

Roxy convulsed, stopped, and then convulsed again (cluster seizure), and by then it had started snowing.  The poor thing looked tiny and pathetic out there, on the frozen ground with snowflakes falling on her.  After the seizures stopped, I helped her to her feet and walked her to the deck (I had to help her walk), carried her up the stairs, and got her in the house.  She was wet, seriously smelly (there’s a smell that goes with the seizures – not the fear stink, but it’s really unpleasant), and totally out of it, so I wrapped her in a towel and sat down on the kitchen floor with her.  After a while, she came around and headed for the food bowl (always a good sign).

About a half-hour later, we decided it was okay to leave her (and Riley), so we went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and then went to the book sale at the library.  And did I mention it was snowing?  And sticking.  The book sale was great.  Not all that organized, but lots of books.  We ended up with another 30 books and 7 or 8 CDs.

We got home to find dog hair EVERYwhere, way worse than when we left, and Roxy out of again and soaking wet all the way around her neck.  She had a seizure while we were gone (leaving evidence by way of an accident in the kitchen), and Riley had done whatever it is he does to her.  So we threw him into the yard, John went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalk, and I swept the first floor.  Roxy used the time to recover.  Now she was all slobbery and gross AND she smelled bad, so we decided to give her a bath.  Actually, I did that while John mopped downstairs.  John took the doors off the shower so I could reach her better.  She behaved much better than usual during her shower.  She usually spends the time trying to escape, but she held pretty still for me.  Now she’s curled up on the dog bed in the dining room, Riley’s on the one in the family room, and John and I are both clean and hungry.  And it’s only just past 2pm.

Big Day

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I woke up to some unidentified noise exactly 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off this morning.  I didn’t hear it again, I didn’t hear the sounds I associate with Roxy’s convulsing, and I didn’t hear Riley pacing back and forth like he does when he’s nervous (like when Roxy is convulsing), so I stayed in bed.  Wide awake.  I decided to take the dogs with me on my run.  I had an awful waking nightmare that the sound I heard was Roxy’s death cry and I would have to explain to my new employer, through my grief, that I wasn’t going to be able to come in today.  I told myself I was getting all crazy over nothing, Roxy’s fine, but maybe I should go for a short run to make sure I’ll have time to go through the 5 or so outfit changes it’ll take before I decide what to wear.

I got up.  Went downstairs to discover Roxy in recovery mode, wandering around the first floor checking things out like she’s never seen them before.  So she did have a seizure.  She’s fine now.  But the seizure meant I decided not to take them with me.  And my run got shorter.  Two miles is not enough to calm me down, but I did go a little faster than normal.  Anxiety is the ticket, apparently, for a speedy workout.  I’m inside, I’m warmed up, and I really need to stop typing and get ready.