Dozer

After staying on a once a month seizure schedule since he began having them last July things turned pretty ugly on Wednesday night. Bill left for work about 9:45pm and about 10pm he had his first seizure while lying on the bed. He soaked all the blankets down to the mattress so after getting him calmed down (somewhat) I changed the bedding and got him back up with me so I could cuddle with him so he knew he was ok. Of course, that was the time that the parking lot cleaning truck had to come real close to the rig with it's lights flashing and every train in northwestern Indiana had to come by on the tracks near the Target with their horns blaring. So he paced and tried to get into small spaces as he has been doing lately after a seizure. I had just gotten off to sleep when he had another at 2am. Where the urine came from I have no idea but he soaked the bed again. Changed the bedding again and this episode actually calmed him down. I called the 24 hour emergency vet in Mishawaka just to make sure I shouldn't bring him in. They said to just watch him and call my vet in the morning as it sounded like he had calmed down.

Bill got home about 5am and Dozey went out to greet him. Bill went in to bed about 6am and left him on the couch. I was woken up a little after that with Doze having another seizure, this time on the couch. And this one again had him pacing and panting. I decided just to stay up as we really had no blankets left anyway. Dozey and I left for the laundromat and $25 worth of laundry later came back to get Bill up. We decided to go to and see Notre Dame and left Target with Dozey in the back of the truck. We were on the freeway around 4pm when he went into another. Thank god that Bill was driving so I could try to get in back to hold him down. Normally it would have been just Doze and I and I would have panicked driving and him going into one.

We pulled off and decided to get him to a vet right away. I went into a Pilot and asked people there if they had a vet they would recommend nearby. I called the closest one and they said that they would stay open for us until we got there. So if you are even in South Bend Indiana and need a vet I highly recommend the Clayview Animal Clinic on Hwy 31!

I called and had our vet in Oshkosh fax all of Dozey's records that by now resemble a small library. The vet looked him over and we discussed the options. In order to stop the clustering of the seizures we made the difficult decision to put him on phenobarbitol which is a barbituate that is routinely used in cases such as this. Unfortunate side effects include weight gain, lethargy and peeing and drinking more. We also are taking him to Dr. Doug who has a vet clinic in Hammond IN and is the moderator on the RV.net pet group that I am on. He had a full blood test and the results came back with only a small elevation in some liver enzymes in one of the tests which the vet said is nothing to really worry about.

So we may need to take him to a neurologist and have scans done or we may just stay with the meds. He has to take a pill every 12 hours which can be a joy in trying to get it down his throat. Bill has come up with a technique of putting it on top of a crunchy treat so he can't tell the pill is there as it is crunchy too. Since starting the meds at 6pm on Wednesday night we haven't seen any sign of an oncoming seizure. We are both wishing it could be different but I can't watch him go through them as it looks like I will lose him any minute while he is in one and there may be one he doesn't come out of. Also, considering our track record with cancer we should be totally grateful that this is what we have to deal with and not that!