Quick update

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I left Bryce home today. Felt awful doing it, but I knew he’d give me that “look” and it would have been really hard for me not to run him. And if he’d had another episode during or after a run, I’d never have forgiven myself! Figures that today’s Jackpot course (the 1 Q he needs for his C-ATCH) was something he could do in his sleep – damn!

Healthwise, so far so good – no new episodes since Tuesday. I also think we can rule out hypoglycemia, unless it was something causing it on those two days. He went a pretty long time without much to eat – he was hungry and bouncing off the walls when I came home, but no wooziness or falling down.

His niece/grandniece did him proud today – 6 runs, 6 Q’s! Two of those were Raven’s – she got her first L1 Standard Q and finished her CL1-H with a really nice Wildcard run. Tomorrow she has standard again and snooker. Not sure if snooker is Raven’s game at this point – may be a little too much control for her taste – but we’ll see! Passed up Jayda’s Colors run to go home and take Bryce out mid-day. I think I’m going to bring him with us tomorrow, now that the big temptation to run him is out of the way. If I bring him inside he won’t sleep, but the weather’s supposed to be nice and he should be fine napping out in the car.

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Where’s Dr. House when you need him?

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Still (knock on wood) so far so good with Bryce… (though he’s NOT happy with me!)

If anyone’s up for playing veterinary detective prior to our $$$ neurologist visit $$$, here are all the facts about the episodes that I could come up. (I had tried to videotape the 2nd episode, but learned that it’s really hard to hold a dog, videotape and panic all at the same time – I got 2 out of 3 of those things right.)

When it happened:

– Both days @ 2PM.
– Had been out and about in the house for about 10-15 minutes – having cookies, running around, jumping on/off sofa, light playing with Jayda, fetching toys …
– No sign of anything unusual until the episode began – he was bright, alert, not shaky, unusually hungry, anxious or anything – just normal Brycey.
– Both episodes were shortly after he did some very excited spinning in one spot.

What it looked like:

– Looked “funny” – “glazed over”
– Stepped wide in his rear
– Seemed unsteady, collapsed (rear) – Front did not collapse. Might have been holding right (both?) front legs a little stiff, but didn’t seem extraordinarily rigid (like “seizure” type rigid).
– No “paddling”, no loss of bowel/bladder control
– Didn’t appear to lose consciousness
– Started to be able to stand and again in a little while – uncoordinated, slow at first, gradually went back to normal
– Episode lasted around 3 minutes.
– No panting or difficulty breathing, didn’t cry out, seem painful or act particularly distressed.

Other things that may or may not be significant:

– Ran in an agility trial just a week earlier. Energetic and bouncing up and down like a crazy man after his runs (he was very pleased with himself!) Speed consistent with other recent events. Absolutely nothing unusual.
– Lots of leaves down in my yard – they sometimes stick in his fur (ate something toxic?)
– Had a dental scaling a week before. There was a little gingivitis, but no infections, no bad teeth and virtually no bleeding. However, because of his myeloma and just as a precaution he was …
– Finishing up the last couple of days of a round of amoxicillin. He had never been put on amoxi before for anything that I can recall. (Byce has been known to have weird problems with normally innocuous drugs – for example, Flagyl).
– Wiped out while running in house over the weekend (slippery spot in hall – his foot went under instead of on top of the rubber backed rugs I have there). I didn’t think he hit his head and he didn’t SEEM any the worse for wear afterwards but he landed pretty hard.
– His main meals are around 5-6AM and 5-6 PM, but he gets cookies occasionally throughout the day. Gets a small snack (cube of cheese and a couple of kibble) at bedtime.
– He spins a lot (duh – he’s a sheltie!), including his “dinner dance” when I feed him. This spinning MAY have been a little more intense/ focused in one spot.

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We Have 48 Hours – Do I hear 72?

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We’ve passed 48 episode-free hours!

His oncologist is as puzzled as his regular vet and I are. We have an appointment to see a neurologist on Monday.

I’ve been keeping Bryce quiet – or trying to. He’s not very happy about spending this much time in his crate and he’s making his feelings known. Maybe I’m being overprotective, but I’m trying not to let him do anything that might trigger another incident. At least not until after I hear what the neurologist has to say.

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Nightmare …

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Yesterday Bryce was out for his usual lunchtime play/cookies – playing with Jayda, playing fetch, snarfing cookies. Then all of a sudden he had some kind of “episode” – partially collapsed, had a hard time getting his back legs under himself. Two or 3 minutes later he was acting perfectly normal.

The vet I like the least was in at my regular vet practice so I took him to the emergency vet clinic – which turned out to be equally useless. He was fine last night and this morning…

Hoped it was an isolated incident but no such luck – happened again today, oddly enough, the same time of day. This time I saw it start-to-finish. I had just put Jayda in her crate, was going to take him out before putting him up for a nap. He spun a bit (as usual) while I was crating Jayda. Went to the door, put on his leash and he just looked … odd. Then he got wobbly and collapsed as the day before. Didn’t completely lose consciousness, was acting normal again in 2-3 minutes.

Ran him straight over to my vet right afterwards for a full exam, neuro exam, full bloodwork, and a urine. Once again the exams yielded no information. So what is going on? A seizure? Bleed/Clot? Something else? And if it’s a seizure, why and why now? This is so weird because it really came on out of the blue – he ran in that trial a week ago with no indication of any problems. Should have the test results back tomorrow and we’ll take it from there …

Needless to say, I’m really freaked out right now and beyond worried about him :( …

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New Dogmobile

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I may be crazy for doing this, but my old car was 9 yrs old, approaching 100,000 miles with close to $3,000 in immediate repairs (exhaust system and a/c) pending, and possibly looking at some other major trouble (my mechanic said the ominous oil leak around the engine may be the beginning of head gasket failure) in the near future. Could I have made all the repairs, spent less overall and still had that car for a while? Sure, and I wrestled with that thought for a long time, but the thought of the car breaking down when I’m alone with 3 dogs (one of which has a traffic phobia) in the middle of nowhere early on a Sunday morning prompted me to upgrade to something newer, hopefully tipping the odds of many miles of trouble-free driving back in my favor!

I cleaned out my old car yesterday – it’s amazing how much stuff can accumulate in a CAR in 9 years. I sometimes joke that it looks like we all live in my car – apparently that wasn’t so far from the truth! The new one’s a little smaller so I’ll need to be a little more selective about what goes back in – that’s not altogether a bad thing.

Here’s the old dogmobile:

outback

Lots of memories with that car – among the papers I found under the seats were directions to obedience trials (I haven’t done obedience in YEARS) and scribe sheets … for Sally!

I got the Outback when Bryce was 2 years old and just starting to trial – the car I had before it was tiny and even though it was an awesome car, with 2 crates in it there wasn’t room for ANYTHING else! (And I had 3 dogs – Tiffy didn’t go to trials with us, but heaven forbid I had to take the three of them anywhere!)

I still had a corporate job at that time and my friend/work “neighbor” Scott was a serious auto enthusiast – as crazy about cars as most of you reading this blog probably are about dogs! He had a growing family to support and to earn some extra cash he had a lucrative little side business going where he would detail and sell cars for people and take a percentage of the sale as commission. He was really good at it – he sold my small car and my jaw dropped when I found out how much he’d gotten for it! He really should have been a car salesman. And I really do mean that, because unfortunately instead of hawking cars in a dealer’s showroom, Scott was in his new office, with a window view, around the ninety-something floor of the WTC (north tower) on a certain sunny September morning in 2001.

Like I said – lots of memories…

So meet the new Dogmobile:

forester

It’s another Subaru. Not really “new”, its a 2005 Forester, but with only 9100 miles on it! It is a little smaller than the other but everything fits. Not sure if “everything” includes 10′ lengths of PVC that I occasionally buy to build agility weaves, jumps and whatnot, but I took the Outback for one last PVC run to Home Depot and stocked up on Monday, so I’m good for a while :).

On the plus side, it makes better use of the space it has, including dozens of little storage cubbies all over the interior – no more excuse for stuff scattered around on the floor! And of course, it has 85,000 fewer miles on it and everything works! I do wish the roof rack had raised side rails like my old car, but we’ll manage.

So now off to make some new/good memories in this one!

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Birthday #2!

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Today’s Raven’s 2nd birthday – can you believe it? At two Raven is a little canine woman-child – all grown up but with a toe or two still in puppyhood. It’s a very fun age.

Raven - Toven Crave the Rave - 2 years old

She gets her stitches out today, which means she can have her freedom back and play with Jayda and Bryce again – and my little fashionista doesn’t have to wear that ugly “shirt” anymore.

She’s gonna be CRAZY-happy :)!

Things could have been very different. Had I known Bryce had cancer that January when I brought her home, I never would have considered getting a puppy.

That said, I’m so glad I did – I adore her and can’t imagine life without her!

Happy Birthday, little one!

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