Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Day 1387

Dot had another seizure this morning. This one was more severe than her previous seizures and exhibited some of the symptoms commonly associated with a stroke. I was worried. It was very discouraging to realize that our theory that her previous seizures were caused by taking Trifexis were probably wrong. Dot hasn't been taking the Trifexis heartworm medication since we switched her back to Sentinel over four months ago.

Dot's seizure began before she even got out of bed this morning. I was getting dressed to go to my Wednesday morning business networking meeting, but quickly changed my plans. Since our veterinarian's office opens at 7 AM, I immediately put Dot in the car and took her over to see the vet. They took some X-rays and kept her the rest of the morning for evaluation. By the time I returned to pick her up at noon, she was completely back to normal.

I have no idea what is causing these seizures. Dot's seizures are very different from the more violent epileptic seizures Dash has. Dot sits quietly and appears to be suffering from a severe case of motion sickness or vertigo. Since there is no longer a strong case that her seizures are caused by Trifexis, there are now more serious things to rule out. She probably needs an MRI to determine if she might have a brain tumor. I have my suspicions that today's seizure might have been caused by the herbicides I saw park workers spraying around the park last week. Seizures can be caused by exposure to the Organophosphate herbicides that are commonly used to control weeds in public parks and recreation areas. It would be hard to prove that herbicides caused Dot's seizure and even harder to avoid them. The park grounds crews sprayed the stuff with such reckless abandon last week that it is almost impossible to avoid.

We skipped Dot's acupuncture session today as well. I called her physical therapy vet right after the seizure happened and she said it would be best to give Dot a rest this week. With no place to go, I stayed in the office and kept a watchful eye on Dot for the rest of the day while I got caught up on my writing assignments. The only other thing I did today was lots of laundry. Dogs frequently lose control of their bowels during seizures, so there were lots of sheets and blankets to wash.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a normal, uneventful day with no further medical issues. Today didn't start normally and it didn't end normally. We thought we'd go ahead and take the dogs to training class tonight, but just have them do the easy exercises. Unfortunately, our regular teacher was gone and his replacement was a maniacal drill Sargent type who aggressively put the dogs through their paces and stressed most of them out. When a fight broke out between two stressed dogs, Janet and I decided that our dogs didn't need any more of this and we left the class early.

Oh well, the worst is over and tomorrow is another day. I say this hopefully at the end of every day.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day
Watch of the Day