seizure

I forgot to add this to yesterday’s post (because this is my oh-so-sophisticated method of tracking her seizures).  Roxy had a seizure around 3pm Saturday afternoon, and another one around 5:45am Sunday morning.  Neither was particularly violent.  Just her typical seizures.  I’ll call the vet and update her chart today.

So Roxy had another seizure last night, just after midnight.  I’m sure she planned it that way so John could enjoy it on his birthday.  She’s fine this morning.

Are you ready to make fun of me?  Here you go.

I have been reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series since sometime in 1991, shortly before the third book came out (I think).  I used to reread the entire series whenever a new one came out, but around book 8 or so, I started rereading only the last few.  Now that book 12 is coming out (in ONE week), I’m only rereading the most recent book (which I’ve only read twice anyway).  Robert Jordan died a couple of years ago, leaving a ton of notes for the last book and some completed sections, and another author I like (Brandon Sanderson) is completing the series.  Of course, the last book has turned into the last three books, but there’s a plan to get them out in a reasonable amount of time.  I have faith in Sanderson (who is a fan who waited for years in between installments with the rest of us) to stick to his plan.

Anyway, I finished Thornyhold yesterday (liked it very much), but it was really just filler until I permitted myself to reread Knife of Dreams (book 11 of WoT).  The new book, The Gathering Storm, comes out next Tuesday, and I’m afraid I’ll just have to find some excuse to visit a bookstore that day before I get home from work…  I’m very excited.  🙂

Roxy had another seizure today while we were at work.  Oh, and apparently, I’m the meatball fairy.  (Check out the latest entry in the Alabama Shiffmans’ blog.)

Busy day, right?  Well, it wore me out.  I have an early morning tomorrow at work and then a race Saturday morning, so I’m going to try to get a good night’s sleep.

Roxy had a seizure tonight.  It’s the first one in more than a month, and I didn’t actually see it, but I’m sure of it.  We banished the dogs to the backyard while we ate tonight, and when I went to let them in, she didn’t come.  I looked out, and she was standing right at the top of the stairs on the deck, with her head between the bench and the railing.  Not stuck, but not moving.  Not normal.  I got her in the house, and now she’s wandering the first floor in recovery mode.  She’s not herself yet.

Today was a good day, mostly.  It ended really well at work, and dinner at The Melting Pot with the ladies (also from work) was fun.  However, Roxy had a seizure this morning before John left (about 9:15 – he said it was short and she recovered quickly), and then she had another one just before 10pm.  Tonight’s might have been two, actually: one regular one and then one small one.  She’s recovered and everything, but it’s a little weird that she went so long without having one and then had two in one day.  I’ll let the vet know tomorrow.

I think I like them better when we have Monday off (’cause then a three-day weekend is followed by a four-day work week), but this one is just fine with me.  We slept in yesterday, went for a run, and then picked Erik up to go have lunch.  We have finally been to Ray’s Hellburger, which was totally mobbed, and totally good.  I went to the eye doctor after that and found out there’s nothing really wrong with my eye.  I had a few eyelashes that were rubbing my cornea, causing a slight abrasion.  The eye doctor got rid of them, and since corneas heal quickly (when the source of the problem is gone, anyway), I’m pretty much all better now.  I felt a ton better as soon as the eyelashes were gone, and I’ll try putting my contacts in later today.

Roxy had another seizure last night.  It was right after we went to bed.  Normal length, and this time she actually recovered a little quicker than usual.  We headed back to bed maybe 25 minutes later.  She’s fine now, but I need to let the vet know there was another one.  The last one was about two and half weeks ago.

Okay, time for breakfast.  Happy 4th of July!

Three things conspired to keep us from running this morning.  It was overkill; any one of the three would have been enough.

1. We had band rehearsal last night, so we didn’t get home until late.  Yesterday was a very long day, and we had pretty much decided we were going to sleep in a little this morning based on that alone.
2. Roxy had a seizure around 2:30 last night.  It was just a little one (no more than 15 seconds of actual convulsing, I think), but it took her nearly an hour to recover.  So we went back to bed around 3:30.  I felt like I had just closed my eyes again when the alarm went off at 7:30.
3. It was raining steadily when we woke up.  Since we had two other reasons not to run, I didn’t really need any others, but I was happy to have the validation.

Rehearsal went well.  I still have some practicing to do, but it’s mostly to figure out fills and stuff.  The basic patterns and stopping and starting the songs are mostly okay.  And we still have a few weeks.

On top of last night’s…issues, Roxy had a seizure shortly after midnight (maybe three mini-seizures – it’s hard to tell) so we were up until about 1:20.  The very late night led to us not running this morning, sleeping in a little too much, and rushing to get to work on time.  Today has been a total waste for me, and we still have band rehearsal to look forward to.

On the bright side, I don’t think anyone wants to have another rehearsal this Thursday, so we should be free to hang out with Mom and Dad.  Of course, they may just collapse, but being at home with collapsing parents would still be more fun than rehearsal after a long day of work.

I’m not very chipper today, am I?

Mom and Dad drove up yesterday and spent the night with us before flying to France today.  Total whirlwind.  They got here midafternoon, I came home from work, we hung out until John came home, we went to dinner, we went to bed.  We got up, we got ready, and I drove them to the airport and they left.  And they met Colin when Will and Christina came over.  Maybe 16 hours, total?  It was a little crazy.  Fun, of course, but I’m tired.  🙂  When they come back, we’ll have three or four days, so maybe we can slow it down a little.

Oh yeah – Roxy had a seizure last night, too.  Mom and Dad slept through it, but John and I got up to help her out.  We slid a pillow under her head to keep her from cracking any more teeth.  Seemed to be effective.  She’s okay now.  It’s like clockwork – we pick her up from the kennel and she has a seizure within three days.  We picked her up Sunday evening, so Tuesday night (late) was right on time.  I don’t know if it’s because they mess up the timing of her doses (we know they do that for sure) or if the kennel is just stressful for her, but this happens every time.

One last thing – I haven’t seen a goose near my office since I started carrying the camera to work.  I did, however, see the cutest video about a duckling rescue in Washington state.  Check it out.

Roxy had 4-5 more seizures last night, just after 10pm.  She didn’t fully recover until after 11.  She was fine overnight, and she seems fine now, but I’m taking her to the vet this morning and leaving her there for observation today.

I’m not going to work today.  Just as we were leaving, Roxy had either four seizures, one on top of the next, or one really long one.  I reached for the door to let them in like normal, and I told Riley to leave her alone, ’cause she was just sitting there, kind of dopey, and he looked like he was trying to get her to play with him.  I opened the door to pull him away and I noticed that she was have a very mild seizure.  Ten seconds later, she shook herself as if everything was okay and then fell to the floor (of the deck) and started convulsing like she meant it.  Weird sounds, difficulty breathing – it was one of her more violent seizures.  She got up pretty quickly from that and dashed/stumbled off the deck, getting stuck in the railing on the way down the stairs, yelping until she hit the ground.  Then she headed for the gate on the garage side, where she fell to the ground again for more convulsions.  This is where I can’t tell if she had two or more separate seizures or if it was all part of the same thing.  She relaxed for a little bit and then started to convulse again.  For the next few minutes (maybe – I’m a bad judge of time on a normal day, and these things seem to last forever), she lay on her side in the dirt with her legs moving like she was running, scrabbling her paws sideways in the mud (and flinging bits of mud on me as I stood there).  She kept getting her nose stuck between the slats in the gate, so I’d drag her out of that trap, only to have her shove her nose up against a fence slat so she started having trouble breathing.  And through all of this she was convulsing.  It was terrible.  In the (relative) quiet before the last one started, I told John I wanted to take her to the vet if she convulsed again, so when it began again (or continued – whatever), John put Riley in his crate and spread the blankets over the backseat of the car.

When she stopped this last time, she didn’t try to get up immediately.  She just stayed down, on her side, breathing.  It started to look like the aftermath of a normal seizure, and we started to calm down.  I did, anyway.  I think John stayed calmer than me from the start.  He kept an eye on her while I got the phone to call the vet.  The result of that call is that Roxy shouldn’t be left alone today.  Either one of us could stay home and watch her or we could leave her at the vet.  Since the vet didn’t need to see her immediately (the seizures stopped and things seemed to be going back to normal), we decided that I would stay home today.  I made an appointment to bring her in for an exam and bloodwork tomorrow night after work.  Her dosage might need to be tweaked a bit.  It’s only been about three weeks since her last seizure.

Anyway, that’s why I’m home today.  Roxy is finally back to her normal self (it took her almost an hour to shake this off this morning – usually it’s only 20-30 minutes), although she’s being a little clingy.  Poor Riley couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I am NOT happy to be back at work this week, at least partly because I am super tired.  And I want to watch the championship game tonight, so I won’t be getting to bed early.  And Roxy had a seizure today (I think), which is expected after we kennel her, but it’s still disheartening. Is it the stress of boarding? Do they give her the medicine incorrectly? I don’t know. But anyway, Saturday.

We woke up to perfect weather Saturday morning, and after breakfast (did I mention how fantastic breakfast was every morning?  REALLY good!) a bunch of us went for a walk along the valley.  Got some good pictures.  Then we cleaned up and almost everyone headed to Charlottesville for the day.  Not all together, though.  Daniel and Meredith went looking for some things they can’t find in Alaska, Jess, Rachel, and I went to run some errands and get pampered, and most of the rest headed downtown for some sightseeing and lunch.  When we all got back, it was time to get ready for the wedding.  The most important thing we took away from the wedding (besides Meredith’s speedy delivery of the ceremony) was how incredibly gorgeous Jess looked.  All brides are beautiful, yada yada yada, but Jess looked fantastic.  She had a great dress, fabulous shoes, and perfect hair.  And the biggest smile.  Chuck looked damn fine in his tux, and Cody and I looked pretty snazzy, too, if I may say so myself.

John took a ton of pictures and will be organizing them and sending them to everyone after his midterm this Wednesday.  He may work on it a little tomorrow, but he needs to study.  He was planning on studying Saturday morning while we were all in town, but decided to hang out instead, and he tried to study in the car on the way home Sunday afternoon, but he kept falling asleep.  He’s even more exhausted than I am.  I don’t think he sleeps enough regularly, and we didn’t sleep all that well at the B&B this weekend, AND he has a late class tonight, so he’s kinda out of luck for sleep this week.

Saturday night a bunch of us watched the Carolina-Villanova game, and then Sunday morning we all headed to Monticello. While we were wandering the grounds, I kept getting distracted by all these great places to read! Under a tree on the lawn, or in a chair looking out over the valley…history is all well and good, but the important thing is to find the best place to read and daydream. John and I said our quick goodbyes (too quick, I think. The tour went a little longer than we expected and we had to get back in time to pick up the dogs – it was close.) and hit the road after that.

It’s really not a long drive, but both ways we were looking at a deadline (his conference call on the way down and getting the dogs before the kennel closed on the way back), so it made the miles take longer. At least on Sunday it was sunny and beautiful. I love road trips in nice weather. 🙂

Allow me to wrap up the topic of this past weekend.  We had a great time with Jess’s family, all of them.  They’re funny, somewhat strange (in a good way, and proud of it!), and totally welcoming.  I hope to see them again any time they’re in the area.

Happy Wedding, Jess and Chuck!

John has a quiz due in his Theory of Algorithms class Monday night.  He’s felt close to the answer all day today.  We’ve been trying to figure out the very last step for the last three-ish hours.  My brain hurts from trying to help John.  I’m so glad I will never have to take Theory of Algorithms.  I don’t want to be a computer programmer!

The rest of the day was spent at brunch with Erik and then at Tysons, buying me a wonderful new laptop bag/tote.  It’s red leather, and it’s perfect.  🙂  I love it.  (This was part of my birthday present.)  Oh, and I’m supposed to mention here that Roxy had a seizure this morning.  (It’ll help me track when she has seizures if I tag the blog entry that mentions it.)  I think she’s been having them a little more often that once a month, which may mean she needs her medication updated.

I am really tired.  I have a lot to do tomorrow, so if John’s quiz allows, I’ll be heading to bed relatively early tonight.