Max, our golden retriever, is causing trouble again. It started at 1:54am with his first seizure. It was fairly short and painless (for us, anyway), lasting only six minutes between when we realized he was having one (we're a bit groggy at two in the morning) and when he could stand and walk. The only real problem was that he got his jaw locked around part of his kennel where one end the fence meets the other. He was laying so still after the seizure, I thought he wasn't breathing. Thankfully, he was, just very quietly. Usually he breathes very heavily after a seizure, as if he had just finished running a marathon. Anyway, we were able to free his jaw, and a few minutes later he was his old self, none of the disorientation we had seen in his past seizures.
I hung out in the living room with the dogs and tried to get some sleep. I must have dozed off, and at 3:23 I was awakened by Max, who was sitting on the other end of the sofa chomping his teeth. It sounded like he had gotten ahold of something verboten to chew on, like a thick piece of plastic. He gets the plastic stuck in the back of his jowls and chomps his teeth trying to get it loose. So I got up to dig whatever it was out and throw it away, but I realized almost immediately that he wasn't chewing on anything. He was having another seizure.
I picked him up and put him down on the ground, because he loses bladder control when he has a seizure, and I really don't want to learn how to remove the smell of dog pee from my sofa. Anyway, this seizure was totally different from the others he has had. Instead of general shaking, this was more of a convulsive seizure. He was wrapping himself up in a ball and half-way opening up, and then curling up again. He also started frothing at the mouth. It seemed to last forever, but it was actually three minutes, the longest three minutes of my life. I did not think it would end, and that we were going to have to wrap him up in a blanket and take him to an emergency clinic to get them to try and stop the seizure. Finally it ended, and once again he laid very still. This time, when he managed to stand up, he was very disoriented and unbalanced.
As he wandered around the living room, he ran into doors and the fence that separates the living room from the rest of the house. He tripped over the box that holds his bowl, or Katy's pillow and not be able to get up for a few seconds. He slipped on the stone entry at the front door and slid to the carpet. This lasted for about an hour, but his ability to walk straight and avoid obstacles such as doors improved dramatically, and by the end of the hour, he could navigate the living room without incident. He (purposely) plopped himself down on the floor at about 4:45, and we all went to sleep, but I'm pretty sure the dogs had a better nap than me, as I was awakened almost immediately by PJ, who decided to do his morning calisthenics at this time. I managed to get some light sleep, awakened by every little noise, until I heard someone pushing at the fence. I peeked over the covers and saw a big, fluffy tail walking across the end table. Scout was up and ready to begin his routine. He came and laid on my chest, purring, letting me know it was time to get up and feed him.
It was about seven now, and while the other mama took care of the morning meds and feeding of the animals, I called the vet to give them the details of our early morning adventure. After several phone follies (hang-ups without knowing they answered, phone mysteriously stop ringing, etc) I was able to get through and leave a message for the doctor, who doesn't come in until 8:30 They open early so people can drop off their animals on their way to work, and the receptionist promised that she would tell the doctor when he came in and call us back with instructions.
As it turns out, we didn't have to wait, because at 8:47, Max had his third seizure of the day. This one was similar to the one that happened about five hours earlier, but the actual seizure only lasted about a minute. He also did not curl up except at the very beginning, and then the seizure was more like he was running: his legs moved like Katy was chasing him through the yard. His recovery after this seizure was very quick, much like the first seizure of the morning. We called the vet to report this last seizure, and he told us to give Max another phenobarb right away. We also scheduled an appointment to get a blood test for his phenobarb levels. The vet feels that Max's body is metabolizing the medicine too quickly, and it is not able to build up in his bloodstream to keep the seizures away.
So this afternoon, after a no more seizure morning, we took him to the vet (Katy was not happy being left behind!). He was very well behaved, as usual, and got lots of attention, cookies, oohs, ahhs, and tummy rubs. The vet said that Max's heart rate and respiration were normal, and he looked good in the physical exam. They have to send the blood off to a lab for analysis, and will check his liver levels as well as phenobarb (phenobarb adversely affects the liver over time), and we will know the results on the liver tomorrow and phenobarb Monday at the latest.
Max will probably have to go on potassium bromide now in additon to the phenobarb. He will need another blood test in thirty days to check the bromide levels to see if the dosage is right. Luckily, the bromide can be called in to the pet pharmacy that we already have an account at for Scout and Katy. He will get four 60mg of phenobarb throgh Monday to (hopefully) keep him out of the emergency clinic. So we are crossing our fingers hoping for a quiet and restful night tonight.
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