Happy woke me up an hour ago. She was having one of her patented partial seizures on my bed, shaking and drooling. I phoned the vet and took her outside to find out if she was nauseous, and she staggered around the lawn like she was drunk, teetering and almost falling over when she squatted to pee. She couldn't get back up the front steps of the house by herself. I was about to put her in the car and take her to the vet's, so they could monitor her, when she came out of it. Immediately she was perfectly fine, wagging her tail and panting a bit, as if surprised by all the sudden attention.
That's the way it was the first time this happened, in July 2005. It's worst right before she comes to herself, abruptly, and then it's hard to believe anything could be wrong. This time, though, I knew it was a partial seizure. It helps to know.
It's more common for dogs to have the full-on variety of seizure, where they lose consciousness and lie on the ground kicking and snapping. Happy, for some reason, experiences the pre-seizure (drooling and shaking) and then the post-seizure phase, where she seems temporarily blind and does an odd little high-stepping stagger.
I don't know what this means. It's less common than the regular form of epilepsy, and the gamut of tests we ran last time didn't reveal a cause. It's good that it happens so infrequently. Of course, I was hoping it wouldn't happen again, but the chances of that were pretty slim. I'm just relieved that she comes out of it as quickly as she does. It's surreal and anti-climatic that it ends so suddenly, but I'll take it.
So. Um. The overnight trip to Victoria was fun. The Evaporators were playing there, so we went over with the band. Ivy loves Nardwaur; they share a love of eccentric hats. John Collins couldn't come - The New Pornographers are off touring with Belle and Sebastian (fancy) - so the bassist from Sloan, Chris, was there instead. He was nice.
I have to wrap this up and go to work.
In the van, Shannon was playing the Gwen Stefani cd. Ivy only wanted to hear one song: Bubble Pop Electric. Whenever it was over, she would say "FAST SONG PLEASE", and we'd have to repeat it. Shannon tried to sell her on a less frenetic song by saying "But this one is really hot!" After that, whenever another song began, Ivy would scream "IT'S TOO HOT!" And we'd play Bubble Pop Electric again.
2 comments:
Poor Happy. That sounds like an awful and sad thing to happen.
It's upsetting, but it was much more awful and sad the first time it happened, because I didn't know what it was. I assumed she had swallowed antifreeze or something. Now at least I know she isn't in any pain (as long as she doesn't run into any walls). Also, this time it seemed less severe, and didn't last as long. Silver lining, and all that.
Post a Comment