New House, More Seizures

I haven't been particularly good about keeping this blog updated lately, although there hasn't really been much to tell either. We're pretty much settled into the new place now. Iris handled the transition very well. I think Iris is an old pro at moving. This is the third place I've lived in since I adopted her, and before that she had four other homes. She's lived in at least 7 places in her 6 years of life, not including the breeder or the shelter. That's enough to make MY head spin.

I did have to deal with a "boundary testing" stage. Yes, all of the same rules still apply in the new house. Iris just needed to check. Multiple times. However, she's been VERY good while I've been at work. There have been various people in and out of the condo (electrician, plumber, etc), and I've been told that Iris is quiet as a mouse. Quiet? My dog? I think the change has been good for her. The condo complex is A LOT quieter than the apartment. No screaming kids outside of my bedroom window.

We've done a little exploring in some of the local parks, but we haven't found a close one that I'm excited about yet. Iris isn't picky though. Any old park will do. A parking lot is good enough as long as she gets to go for a walk. The other day we ran into another red merle Aussie at the park. Cool! It's the first time I've ever seen another red dog outside of a doggie event (agility and herding have a disproportionate number of Aussies compared to the general population so they don't count)! He was quite a bit bigger than Iris, heavier boned, and had a lot more coat. He made poor Iris look like a scrappy little pipsqueak. Although I admit it, I prefer the "scrappy Aussie" look to the "show Aussie" look.

Our exploring got sidelined last Saturday because Iris started having seizures again. We ended up at the ER vet on Sat night. She was seizing every 3 hrs almost on the dot. It seems like once she starts seizing like that, she gets "stuck." The ER vet was nice enough, although she didn't really have any insight for what set off this round of seizures. She seemed to think that Iris is too old for epilepsy (she's over 5 years old) but a little too young for a brain tumor and asked if I though maybe it was a toxicity? Could Iris have eaten a penny? It sort of went downhill from there. No, I think it is very unlikely that my 6 year old Aussie ate a penny. She picks and chooses which crumbs she'll eat off the floor. The vet also pretty much said that she didn't agree with the decision to start Iris on Keppra instead of phenobrab (a decision I made after a lot of discussion with my regular vet. Mostly I was just annoyed that she was openly second guessing the decision without knowing any of the reasons for it).

Iris did have a seizure at the ER vet, so she got a Valium injection and the ER vet started her on phenobarbital (they gave her a "loading dose" - a higher than normal dose to get her jump-started because it takes time for phenobarb to really start working). They shaved her front leg to give her the first dose of phenobarb via IV catheter and did a shoddy job of shaving her. Her poor leg is all scraped up now. I brought her home, and she was one drugged up pup. She could not keep her feet under her, and I had to carry her up the stairs into the condo. Mentally she was on another planet too. She'd urinated on herself at the ER vet and desperately needed a bath. In hindsight, I wish I had a video camera during the bath. She lay down in the tub completely spacing out the whole time. Getting her to flip over so I could get the other side wasn't easy! If you could have seen us, it was pretty comical. At least Iris didn't seemed stressed out by it. I don't think she knew she was in the bath.

I talked to Iris' regular vet on Monday morning. He still thinks epilepsy is the right diagnosis, and the reason she's still having siezures is that we haven't gotten her medication right. I've heard a few times (and the ER vet definitely seemed a little hung up on this) that seizures in a dog 5 years old and younger indicate epilepsy, but Iris is 6 years old. Iris' vet doesn't think that's such a rigid cutoff.

This is the second round of seizures since she started on medication. The dosage of keppra that Iris started on is on the low end of the dosage range. We talked again about what medication to put Iris on. The reason for putting Iris on keppra in the first place was to avoid the side effects of phenobarb. With that in mind, we decided to take her off phenobarb and increase the dose of keppra instead. Keeping fingers and paws crossed that will do the trick.

So far, she's gone a week without seizures. I actually think the 4 week mark will be more of a milestone for Iris. At least the side effects from the drugs have subsided. Her balance was really affected by the meds. On Sun she could barely keep her feet under her. Thurs night was the first time since Sat that Iris was actually walking normally. For much of the week, even standing up to relieve herself was a struggle. Her butt-puff is not-so-neatly trimmed as result, but at least it helped keep her clean. Mentally, she wasn't "all there" for the beginning of the week. Very spacey. Any sort of sudden noise would make her really jump. Wed she was finally acting more like herself and Thurs was the first night she was able to do stairs on her own. I'm not entirely certain which med she was reacting to (some of the side effects are the same), although I think the worst of it was phenobarb. It was another reason for taking her off of it. Her vet said it could take up to 30 days for her to fully regain her balance if we left her on phenobarb (some dogs adjust faster). Just because she was having trouble walking doesn't mean she didn't have energy.

At least she's back to herself now.