Nyx is a hot mess on the best of days but we love her so much. Her crazy personality is magnetic and everyone loves her spunkiness. We knew that she was a high energy dog as is her sister but soon found out that she had a whole new set of challenges.
The Discovery
When she was 10 months old we were watching our favorite TV show in our living area and Maze and Nyx were in their usual spots, passed out. It was like any other evening, we were heading to bed and called the dogs to follow us. Nyx got up, took about 10 steps and just went frozen solid and fell over. We had never experienced anything like this. Her eyes went into into the back of her head and all her body parts were completely tense and extended. It looked like she was trying to touch her head to her back.
It was a seizure.
If you want to see what a seizure looks like in our situation, please click here to get to our YouTube Channel (not everyone will, so I didn’t add it to the blog). It was quite late at night and we called the emergency vet. The vet was backlogged and said we could bring her in but she would probably be kept in a kennel until the vet was free at about 2 am. We would have to leave our poor baby, scared and alone in a new place – heck no!
We made the decision to wait to contact our regular vet in the morning. We put her on the end of her bed and slept very lightly that night.
The Path to Move Forward
The next morning we took her to the vet first thing (we have THE BEST vet) and he checked her over. She seemed fine. We took her back for some blood tests so see if there was any indication of a problem. The vet even checked her thyroid. The tests came back clean. He was very thorough and spent about an hour explaining the cause, symptoms and the treatment of seizures. He had said that Nyx had to have a couple seizures a month before he would put her on permanent medication as the medication also has side effects.
Her next seizure was in the fall and it was when Nyx was greeting my husband at the door when he came home from work. She ran over to say hello and just fell over. Again, terrifying.
This seizure lasted a long time, about five minutes. We had her in the car and heading to the emergency vet while she was coming out of the seizure. We were devasted that it had happened again. The emergency vet sent us home with medication for her to take every eight hours for the rest of her life.
So…
we made the executive decision to wait to see what our regular vet had to say in the morning after what he explained on our last visit. The next morning he praised us for not following someone blindly and said that he didn’t want her on them yet. We did a more extensive blood test this time as well. It came back clean.
She had a great couple of months until she had another moderate seizure in December. It was time to put her on the seizure medication. She takes it every eight hours. The vet said that if she doesn’t have another seizure by the time she turns two then he will ween her off the medication in hopes that she has grown out of them.
Unfortunately, Nyx brought in the new year with seizure, yes, exactly at 11:58 pm she seized. She has had another one again at the end of January and as recent as this past Monday. Although the medication isn’t stopping the seizures, they are now very mild. Her seizures now mean she can’t walk for about 5 minutes but as we hold her she give us kisses and wags her tail.
We have learned so much about seizures; what to look for, what is ok and what is troubling. After Nyx’s first seizure so was so thirsty and she was panting really hard. We were told that the problem with bad seizures is that the body warms up and that is what can hurt the brain so if she reaches a certain temperature, we are to put cool wet towels on her to keep her temperature down. Thankfully, we do not have these anymore.
I never really thought about the “what if” with a dog and an illness. I thankfully work from home, so Nyx’s 2:30 p.m. medication is not a problem for us. We have family and friends that are more than happy to help look after her should we need to go out for a long duration of time. We have pivoted our life to accommodate her illness and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I know dogs are not children but I am sure the empathy and anxiety is not far off from having a child with the same condition (and I watch a friend struggle because she is not able to help more with her daughter’s seizures). I reached out on my personal Facebook page and was shocked how many of my friends have pets that have seizures and that are on medication. We have chatted about how terrifying it is to watch and how terrified our beautiful pups are too. If this is also happening with your dog, our hugs and love go out to you as well.
