Yesterday morning: Ruby has been on her Propalin for a few days. Every time we give it to her she quiets down for half an hour or so, gets all subdued, and I rang the vet yesterday just to check this was ok. They said it was - and quite common.
Early afternoon: I'm walking through the house and I find Ruby by the front door, sitting up in a strange, stiff position, not panting but heavily breathing. She won't come when she's called. I go and give her a cuddle, and she moves away. She makes it up the stairs and then sits in front of the lounge, panting. I go to the kitchen and call her. She doesn't turn her head, she doesn't flick an ear, she doesn't acknowledge me at all. Max goes to her, and has to physically move her out of the way. She has leaked all over the floor. He has to help her walk to the back door. After a few steps she trots out there, tail wagging, normal. I think it is another absence seizure like she's had before. Ring the vet - confirmed by him. It's a form of epilepsy, there's nothing we can do - he says she is experiencing the `aura' not the fits themselves, which is good. This is only her second one. We hope they continue to be as rare as they are at the moment. But....epilepsy? After all we've just been through with her? It's so unfair.
Later in the afternoon: I go and do the food shopping. Get home, Max is frantic. Chester has been incontinent with diarrhoea on his bed, and Ruby has started having a panic attack, racing through the house and acting as though she's got a grass seed or something - shaking her head. Freaking out. She settles as soon as she sees me, and sits on my feet, leaning all her weight back into me. As I give her a cuddle I notice a wet patch under her throat - I look and there is a pink, swollen, oozing and bleeding mass of fur there. No phone call this time, straight in the car and to the vet.
Now for the worst part. This is all because of her Halti. Because it clips behind her ear, I never noticed that it was rubbing under her throat. She's had the Halti two years and it's never caused this before. And what's worse, I've been continuing to put it on her despite the fact that she was getting rubbed raw and I didn't know. I put it on her to take her to the vet, and left off her collar, because I thought it might have been that - it's new. The vet agrees with me that Chester pooped on his bed because he identified with her extreme stress.
She is on antibiotics and Phenergan for ten days. The pain and distress of it has made her incontinent again despite the Propalin. Last night she kept disappearing into remote corners of the house to be alone. She woke me at 4am panting frantically and heavily at the door to our room. She only quieted when I stroked her head. I stayed up all night stroking her head, and she finally fell asleep on my lap this morning. It has been a terrible, terrible 24 hours with her - and I just feel so dreadful that it happened at all. I can't imagine her distress. She is SO sick, and I've never seen her this way. It was the distress that brought on the absence seizure.
Thank God she still loves me.
What a faithful, brave girl.
Early afternoon: I'm walking through the house and I find Ruby by the front door, sitting up in a strange, stiff position, not panting but heavily breathing. She won't come when she's called. I go and give her a cuddle, and she moves away. She makes it up the stairs and then sits in front of the lounge, panting. I go to the kitchen and call her. She doesn't turn her head, she doesn't flick an ear, she doesn't acknowledge me at all. Max goes to her, and has to physically move her out of the way. She has leaked all over the floor. He has to help her walk to the back door. After a few steps she trots out there, tail wagging, normal. I think it is another absence seizure like she's had before. Ring the vet - confirmed by him. It's a form of epilepsy, there's nothing we can do - he says she is experiencing the `aura' not the fits themselves, which is good. This is only her second one. We hope they continue to be as rare as they are at the moment. But....epilepsy? After all we've just been through with her? It's so unfair.
Later in the afternoon: I go and do the food shopping. Get home, Max is frantic. Chester has been incontinent with diarrhoea on his bed, and Ruby has started having a panic attack, racing through the house and acting as though she's got a grass seed or something - shaking her head. Freaking out. She settles as soon as she sees me, and sits on my feet, leaning all her weight back into me. As I give her a cuddle I notice a wet patch under her throat - I look and there is a pink, swollen, oozing and bleeding mass of fur there. No phone call this time, straight in the car and to the vet.
Now for the worst part. This is all because of her Halti. Because it clips behind her ear, I never noticed that it was rubbing under her throat. She's had the Halti two years and it's never caused this before. And what's worse, I've been continuing to put it on her despite the fact that she was getting rubbed raw and I didn't know. I put it on her to take her to the vet, and left off her collar, because I thought it might have been that - it's new. The vet agrees with me that Chester pooped on his bed because he identified with her extreme stress.
She is on antibiotics and Phenergan for ten days. The pain and distress of it has made her incontinent again despite the Propalin. Last night she kept disappearing into remote corners of the house to be alone. She woke me at 4am panting frantically and heavily at the door to our room. She only quieted when I stroked her head. I stayed up all night stroking her head, and she finally fell asleep on my lap this morning. It has been a terrible, terrible 24 hours with her - and I just feel so dreadful that it happened at all. I can't imagine her distress. She is SO sick, and I've never seen her this way. It was the distress that brought on the absence seizure.
Thank God she still loves me.
What a faithful, brave girl.
