It’s been 17 days since our sweet baby earned her silver harness and journeyed across the Rainbow Bridge.  Those 17 days have been unimaginably difficult, and probably the worst days of my life.  We are doing better, the pain and shock have finally numbed a little, but I still have that little feeling in the back of my mind that this didn’t really happen.

We spent the last 14 months steeling ourselves for “the seizure”, the one that she wouldn’t recover from.  It was pretty inevitable given the severity of her hydrocephalus and the amount of missing brain tissue.  We were caught completely off guard by the blockage that wound up taking her from us.  Shadow had big Pica issues because of all of the neuro issues.  That dog would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, and knowing this we did what we could to keep her safe and keep her from eating non food items.  It wasn’t enough, and I still feel crippling guilt that I didn’t take that toy away.  She, unbeknownst to us, had eaten a couple of inches of nylon rope out of a toy we’d been given.  She threw up early in the week and in the dark I could see chunks of something in it, but it was in the middle of the night and my still sleeping brain didn’t register the danger.  I thought she’d been eating poo in the back yard again.  It wasn’t until Saturday morning that we figured out she was sick.  It still never crossed my mind that she could have a blockage.  By Sunday afternoon, it was obvious that something was seriously wrong, and our saint of a vet got one of her techs to come meet us hoping we could stave off a trip to the ER.  It was painfully clear to everyone as soon as we saw the X-Rays that she had a blockage, so off to the ER we went for surgery.

When we got there, we found that none of the boarded surgeons were available to operate and we could have the resident do it or wait until morning.  We opted to have it done that night by the resident, fearing that any wait could result in necrotic bowel.  This is one of the things that I keep going back to.  Did he screw something up?  Did we make the wrong decision?  If we’d waited, would we be sitting here tonight laughing about how Shadow the Shitter finally met her match but recovered?  I just can’t stop thinking about all the things I could have done differently that could have affected the outcome.  Why didn’t I emphasize more to them that something was really wrong when I took her back on Wednesday morning?  Why didn’t I demand more aggressive treatment?  I can’t help but feel like I could have done more and that in the end I failed her.  I got a call on Thursday afternoon a couple hours after I’d called to check on her.  I felt like I got punched in the stomach as the doctor explained that Shadow had in fact developed a leak at the repair site in her intestine, and that she had gone septic.  I literally felt the blood drain out of my face as she said that Shadow would, without a doubt, die unless they took her back right away in a last ditch effort to fix the leak and clean out the infection.  When Aaron and I got there to see her, at first she perked up and gave us kisses, but then deteriorated before our eyes.  It was obvious at that point that another surgery was futile and that it would only serve to further torture our little girl.  We made the most difficult, painful decision to let her go peacefully.

We thought it would be a seizure that took her, something that we couldn’t control.  But no, it was something that was so fucking preventable, and I feel horrible about it.

We were sitting later that evening in a total daze barely even registering what was on TV, when I heard Richard Webber on Grey’s Anatomy say “I think when the world gives you more than you bargained for, you usually end up glad you got it”.  Shadow wound up being way more than we bargained for, in so many ways.  That dog left an impression on every single person she ever came across.  She had this magical quality about her that made it impossible to not fall instantly in love.  I don’t think there has been a sweeter dog that ever walked the earth.  She also required an amazing amount of care.  I got up every day at 0545 (if she didn’t get me up during the night to go poop) to get her the 1st of her 8 rounds of medications.  This was every day.  I didn’t sleep in.  Ever.  I only got uninterrupted sleep if I had to go out of town, and even then I worried that something would happen while I was gone.  She was hugely expensive, too.  We are very fortunate that we both have good jobs, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to afford the medications, appointments, and daycare that she required.  She wound up being FAR more than we bargained for when we first saw that little fuzzy puppy with the angry mask on the rescue webpage, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.  I would happily take it all on again just to have her back.  I would give anything for one more time getting tackled and kissed half to death, one more time going to sleep with her snuggled up against me, one more time getting her to talk to us in her goofy little way.

We’ve begun fostering other dogs in need.  We didn’t intend to do so as soon as we did, but a very sweet little girl desperately needed a foster for a couple of weeks, and it would have been selfish of us not to step up and open our home.  She came into our lives when we needed her, and helped all of us (including Ghost) heal.  She’s since gone to her forever home, but we plan on honoring Shadow’s legacy and helping as many homeless Huskies as we can.  Who knows, we’ll probably foster fail but we’ll always continue to do everything we can to support rescue efforts nationwide.

July 16th should be a great day for us.  It’s Aaron’s birthday, and as such a year ago today we were out celebrating while on the vacation of a lifetime.  I’d taken him out to White Sands beach on Oahu to teach him how to surf, and we had a great time.  Of course while I showed him how to do it, that asshole rode multiple waves while I had a bad day and never managed to stand up 😛

We were on our way back to our hotel from that surfing trip when we got the phone call that would shatter our worlds.  Kim, our house sitter called and nervously said “um, Shadow just laid down and was shaking, and your vet isn’t answering the phone”.  You know in movies and stuff when you hear the sound of a record scratching?  It was something like that as my brain struggled to process what I’d just heard.  I was on the other side of the world and my 4 month old puppy was having seizures.  I was powerless to do anything.  God bless Kim and Holly though, they kept their cool and got Shadow the care she needed at the after hours E-Vet in Annapolis.  Knowing they had things under control meant one less thing we had to worry about as we travelled back from Hawaii.

The last year has brought a lot of sadness, anger, resentment, questioning, but has also given us a new perspective on life.  We’re beyond the “why us” and “what did we do to deserve this”, and have moved on to “how can we give her the best life” and “what can we do to help others in this situation”.  Being able to connect with other hydro pup owners as well as a couple of children with hydrocephalus has really helped us deal with everything and be able to keep supporting Shadow.  Since the last post we’ve had a lot of changes, but I didn’t want to write on them until we had an idea on whether or not the new stuff would work.  Our neurologist in Annapolis abruptly left that practice and moved out of state, and so we were left a bit high and dry.  Aaron and I chose to leave that neurology practice and we are now patients of Dr. Jarboe at Bush Neurology in Leesburg, VA.  That practice is amazing, Dr. Jarboe is wonderful, and in my humble opinion it’s more than worth the hour and a half (one way) trip to go see her.  We may ultimately wind up with Dr. Bush himself now that the Rockville office is open, but for now we’re happy with the care she’s getting.

Shadow began a series of non convulsive “events” shortly after the last post, and with Dr. Jarboe’s blessing we have begun a cannabid product derived from the hemp plant.  Before anyone freaks out that I’m giving my dog marijuana, I’m not.  The company that makes this supplement is called Canna Companion and was founded by two vets who had done extensive research on cannabid products and how they can be used to help animals with serious health issues.  Since the compound contains no THC and is derived from the Cannabis Sativa L (hemp) plant, the product is 100% legal.  I’m still very careful about it, as even the perception of illegal drugs could be very bad at this point.  After doing careful and extensive research, I judged that the benefits far outweighed the risks and we started Shadow on it under the guidance of Dr. Jarboe and the vets at Canna Companion.  The results have been astounding.  We immediately noticed a change in her demeanor and appetite (had decreased markedly after starting the Zoni), and very quickly realized that she was not only more stable on her feet but also more mentally alert and interactive with us.  I think the most telling sign of improvement was when several of our sponsor midshipmen (from the Naval Academy) came through one weekend between their summer training events and all wanted to know what had changed with Shadow.  They all exclaimed how awesome she looked, without even being asked by us what they thought.  We did have a few issues with more of those events, but we offset the Zonisamide by an hour due to the suspicion that she was just bottoming out on med levels around the morning medication time.  Since then we’ve only had one issue which was yesterday, and we just swapped manufacturers on the Keppra again.  Overall though, Shadow is doing wonderfully and we are cautiously optimistic for her.

Wow, this has become quite the long post…

Anyway, I’m hoping for continued improvement and control of these seizures as we head into year 2 of dealing with The Monster.

It’s hard to believe this journey began a year ago today.  We were so happy and excited to have Shadow come home, and definitely breathed a sigh of relief when Shadow wasn’t the hellion that Ghost was at that age.  Little did we know that was a sign that all was not right with her.  This past year has been an emotional rollercoaster ride from hell, with a lot of anger, sadness, and lashing out at anyone within reach.  We were so resentful towards our friends with “normal” dogs, and racked our brains to try to figure out what we had done wrong to be left with a special needs dog.

It isn’t fair.  Why us?  Why Shadow? Have we offended some deity and this is Its wrath raining down upon us?  Whatever the reason, we have fought for some semblance of normalcy this past year.  We deal with judgmental looks and mutters of “it’s just a dog”.  “Wait, you hire a babysitter for your dog?!”.  Whatever, they can take those attitudes and shove them.  Shadow is the sweetest, happiest dog that has such a profound effect on everyone she meets.  She is a testament to resiliency, and we could all learn a thing or two from her.  She has no idea she has limitations, she just runs along following Ghost and eating things she’s not supposed to.  She loves everyone, and greets our Midshipmen and other guests with a full on conversation when they walk through our door.

We’ve learned so much from her, and despite the hardship and tears and late nights in the emergency room we are better off from having her grace our lives.  So happy Gotcha Day, Shadow, and here’s to many more!

So it’s been a little while since I last updated, I was pretty crushed with work for a while.  Thankfully the semester is over, the grading is done, and the grades have all been input into the system.  Now it’s time to shift gears into my summer training blocks, I had a *lovely* 7 hour long planning meeting today.  It was painful.

Anyway, Shadow.   So we’ve been dealing with seizures every couple of weeks since her first birthday, and messing with the Phenobarbital and Keppra haven’t helped.  She gave us a pretty good scare a couple weeks ago too, she had a seizure and then lost the use of her back legs for close to half an hour afterwards.  She did it at daycare again a few days later, so she got picked up and got to spend the rest of that day with me at work.  Aaron and I had a pretty long talk about things, and then Dr. Clarke and I had a chat.  He recommended that we add in another anti-epilepsy med, and so we have added 200 mg of Zonisamide twice a day on top of everything else.  Just like when she started the Phenobarbital, she’s been wobbling around like she’s drunk and having a really hard time on the hardwood floors.  She also started getting super picky right around the same time we started the Zoni, but that may be due to the changing weather as well.  Ghost has started turning up her nose at meals from time to time, and I’ve heard that several of Shadow’s littermates are as well.  It’s pretty typical behavior for Huskies as it starts warming up, and as long as I can get her meds into her I’m not that concerned.

The other part of the conversation that we had was regarding the installation of a shunt.  Aaron and I had a very long talk about this, and looked at the risks vs the benefits of the procedure.  After looking at it from every angle, we have decided not to pursue that as an option for Shadow.  If we had it done, it would restrict her to the point that she’d have to be kept separate from Ghost and not allowed to play anymore.  Hell, she wouldn’t even be able to wear a collar, and the way they play there would be an extreme risk of the tubing being damaged during play.  The other big consideration was the extremely high incidence of having to re-shunt.  Money becomes a bit of a factor at that point (each procedure is roughly $7K give or take), but more than that it’s putting her through that kind of trauma repeatedly.  It’s just not fair to her, and so we’re opting to keep managing the fluid as best as we can through medication alone.

So, since starting the Zoni almost 2 weeks ago, we haven’t had any true seizures.  She had some sort of episode while I was gone on Sunday morning, and we’re still not sure if it was a partial seizure or if she was just zoning out on the meds.  I think she was just zoning out, these meds tend to do that.  She’s been sleeping more as well, which is actually a good thing because she’s not waking me up as much at night to go out.  I got my first unbroken sleep in a while the other day  She also seems like she’s starting to adjust to the meds, she’s been a little less wobbly the last couple days.  That’s a huge relief, it’s so hard to watch her all drugged up and tripping over herself.

I hope we get another good stretch of control…

First off, and this is a couple days late, but we went purple for Canine Epilepsy Awareness Day on Wednesday the 26th. It was pretty cool to see all the support out there for our dogs, as well as all the people who have to live with this awful disease. Shadow also got to hang out with me at school and help my students with test anxiety since they had their 12 week exams. They all loved having her there, and she really enjoyed all the interaction

So since the birthday party on the first, we’ve had a couple of clusters. We kept a pretty close eye on her after the really nasty one on the 3rd, and Dr. Clarke upped the phenobarb to 64.8mg every 12 hours from 48.6mg every 12 hours. She was ok on that for a couple weeks, but then had a series of clusters on the 16th and 17th. Following those, Dr. Clarke had us go to every 8 hours instead of every 12, since the seizures were all happening right around morning med time. That timing led us to believe that the med levels were just dropping too low right around 0630, because that’s when she got a dose of everything. The meds all wind up getting spread through the day a little, it was just that one time a day where she got everything. So the new increase seems to be working, but we had a little hiccup this morning.

This morning when I came out do the shower, it looked like Shadow was stuck between the foot board and mattress, so I moved her back up towards Aaron. When he went to cuddle with her he noticed her pupils were huge and unreactive. She also had no blink reflex and wasn’t responding well to us. She drooled a little bit, and by that point we were pretty sure it was a focal seizure. We got her off the bed and she chased her tail a little bit and got super wobbly. She’d seem to come out of it for a couple minutes and then go right into another one. This went on for 15-20 minutes, and I wound up giving her a double dose of phenobarb and Levetiracetam. That seemed to work thankfully, and she hasn’t had any seizures since. Hopefully this was the last one for a while, but now we know more of the really subtle things to watch for. We are puppy sitting tomorrow for a couple of her doggy friends, I hope she does ok with them.

The last time we refilled the phenobarb, we decided to grab a refill of the Levetiracetam as well, just to save a trip to Costco in the future. We noticed when we got home that the Levetiracetam pills looked different this time, and sure enough they’re from a different manufacturer. I’ve heard in the past from other folks with epi dogs who had some problems when switching manufacturers, so that alone made me nervous. Now, in the past couple days, our canine epilepsy list serve has been blowing up with folks who are having problems with generic zonisimide. Turns out that something like 40% of generic meds are made in India, and recently they’ve come under scrutiny by the FDA for having unreliable meds and a plethora of other manufacturing issues that violate FDA standards. I called up Costco this afternoon, and I have to say I was very impressed with their pharmacists. The gentleman I talked to explained that they were no longer able to get the old Levetiracetam, which was from a company called Boca Pharmaceuticals whose meds are in fact made in India. They currently have the meds coming from Solco Healthcare, which despite being a US based company has their drugs made in China. I’m not real thrilled about either prospect, but we had 6 months with no seizures with the Boca drugs. I need to go digging, but I’m wondering if Boca isn’t one of the Indian manufacturers who has been banned by the FDA. The pharmacist at Costco was able to find 240 pills in stock though, and he has had them set aside for us. What’s there will last 2 months, so hopefully that will give us enough time to find a viable solution. I really don’t like the idea of meds made in China after all the problems we’ve been seeing with other Chinese made products. I’m going to spend some time researching how cheap I can get the name brand stuff, but unfortunately I do know it’s really expensive. I just want to give Shadow the best chance possible, but we do have to be realistic with the expenditures.

After all the joy and celebration of the weekend, reality snuck back up and bit me in the ass on Monday morning.  We had another snowstorm come through (is Spring ever going to come?), and I had a snow day from school.  I was pretty stoked, and planned on going back to bed for a while after feeding the dogs and giving Shadow her morning meds.  Shadow, and really I should say that asshole Hydrocephalus, had other plans.  Ghost and Shadow were begging to go play in the snow, and I let them go romp while I fed the cats.  As I opened the door to walk back up with them I realized that Shadow was going into a full on grand mal seizure.  It was definitely one of the more violent ones she’s had too, which scared the shit out of me.  It probably lasted about 45 seconds (I didn’t have my phone with the timer with me, was still in pajamas), and she seemed super disoriented when she finally stopped seizing.  Of course, the whole time she was seizing Ghost was trying to play and completely missed that something was wrong.  I was able to get her back into the house under her own power, but she was high stepping and hugging the walls when she came back in.  All indications were pointing at her gearing up to cluster, so I gave her the squirt of valium in her rear and gave her an extra dose of phenobarb and Keppra.  I don’t know if it was the valium kicking in or if this was an especially bad post ictal, but we couldn’t get her to settle down for about 45 minutes after the seizure.  At least she didn’t wind up clustering, but I was on the phone with the eVet to find out if they were even open in the snowstorm and to let them know we might be bringing her in.

Dr. Clarke is a saint, and had emailed me within about an hour and a half of the first phone call to the referral center with a new protocol for her.  So basically what we are looking at at this point is an increase in Phenobarbital and potentially an increase in the Omeprazole.  We’ve known she was sort of hanging out at the low end of the therapeutic range for the phenobarb, but none of us ere inclined to change it at the time since she was doing so well.  Guess it’s time to change the dosage…

It’s been entirely too long since I updated the blog, and I think a lot of that was a function of Shadow doing so well I didn’t want to jinx it.  I have a large update to make though, and I’m actually going to do it in parts because I want to keep the happy stuff untouched by the not so happy stuff we’ve experienced this week.

So after the addition of the Phenobarbital in August and the spay in September, Shadow had been doing amazingly well.  We’ve hit all kinds of milestones and experienced a bunch of “firsts” for her.  In late September she got to go on her first hike, and she adored it.  She did super well too.  We’ve now had several dog park trips, and she’s a hoot to watch at the park.  She mostly follows Ghost around like a true little sibling.  We can just imagine her saying “hey guys, wait for me!” as she tries to keep up with a pack of older dogs 😛  She’s also come to school with me several times to help reduce my students’ anxiety on test days.  She loves hanging out around with the mids, she’s such a little social butterfly.

So amongst all the milestones and whatnot, we hit one this past weekend that we were afraid we’d never see.  Shadow turned one on March 1st, and we threw one hell of a doggy birthday party.  Yes, I threw a birthday party for my dog.  Feel free to judge, I don’t care 😉  We had a crazy group of dogs and people, including several of Shadow’s litter mates, her mom, her foster mom who is the reason she is alive, and several of the vets and vet techs who have worked so hard to keep her healthy over the past several months.  She even had a little friend come down from New York City who also turned one on the first.  It was a lot of fun, and Shadow loved all the goodies she was spoiled with.  Our house is now a sea of stuffed toys in all different states of evisceration 😛

We’ve made it one month seizure free!  I really hope I’m not jinxing things though…

Shadow’s had a pretty awesome week since going to school with me last Friday.  She got to go on her first hike this past weekend at Patapsco State Park, and she had a blast.  When she walks by herself, she sort of lollygags along and we have to sort of pull her along half the time, but when she’s out with other dogs, she pulls like the crazed Husky she is.  Here she is walking with her good friend Khuno:

She also had her follow up with the surgeon on Tuesday and was cleared to return to full activity, so she’s gotten to play a bit at daycare.  Apparently she’s making lots of friends and doing very well in light one on one play.  If that continues to go well, she’ll get to ease into more vigorous play groups.  She already plays like a maniac at home with Ghost, and I’ve started letting her run around again in the backyard.

The only thing we really need to work on now is telling us that she needs to poop when we’re not by the back door.  If she’s right there, she’ll ring the potty bells.  If not, she just pops a squat and goes wherever.  The best is in the middle of the night when she poops in her crate and then sleeps in it.  Because I love bathing her at 0600 before work…  So far the last couple nights have been poop free, let’s hope that continues.  The last time she did it, she managed to leave a turd dangling from the top of the crate.  We have no idea how she managed that…

A lot has happened since my last post, and Shadow has been doing fantastic.  After getting things under control and adding the phenobarb, we haven’t had any seizures for 23 days.  This is an all time record for her since they began.

We went back to see Dr. Clarke a week after the cluster incident, and she was doing well enough at that point that he gave his blessing for the spay the following week.  We scheduled it for that following Wednesday, and it went off without a hitch.  She spent the night there, and was apparently rather vehemently protesting her confinement in a cage.  When I called to check up, I could hear her in the background telling everyone she was not happy.  When I picked her up on Thursday she was her normal little self and wanting to be the maniacal little Husky puppy that she is.  Needless to say, she was on crate rest for a few days so she couldn’t get too rambunctious with Ghost.

On the subject of crates, we’ve had a fun little regression and she’s crapped in her crate and then slept in it pretty much every night for the last couple weeks.  There’s nothing quite like waking up to the smell of shit permeating the bedroom.  This morning she decided when my alarm went off that it was poop time, luckily I saw it develop and she didn’t get any on her.  But now I need to clean up 2 crate pans.  And scoop kitty litter.  I guess I’m going to have a crappy evening 😛

Today was our first midterm in the class I teach, and I brought Shadow in for my mids.  They talk all the time about missing their pets back home, and I figured that petting a dog during a test would take the edge off their test anxiety.  She was a huge hit, and the mids absolutely adored her.  It’s hard not to love her, she’s so sweet.  People tell me all the time how much they love her and how sweet she is.  I love my dog.  Here’s a picture of her during my 2nd class period of the day:

Here’s hoping for a seizure free weekend and no baths in the immediate future for Shadow…

So I guess it’s been a week or so since I posted last, I’ve been crazy busy with work and we were in the Colorado Backcountry last weekend.

That trip was AMAZING, we climbed Mt. Elbert (14,433′ the tallest in Colorado and 2nd tallest in the lower 48) with some good friends who live in Denver.  It was a long day, we got rained and hailed on, the altitude really took its toll, but it was absolutely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  Here’s a pic of Aaron and I at the summit

Now onto Shadow.  She was great while we were gone, and the boarding/vet facility took wonderful care of her.  I will definitely use them for her again, even though it was pretty expensive.  Worth it for the peace of mind though.  So we are now 9 days seizure free, which is the longest we’ve gone since the diagnosis.  The phenobarb seems to be doing its job, and we’ve even tested the bounds a little as far as activity goes.  She got to go with Ghost down to the Naval Academy last night to meet with some midshipmen and run around some on one of the athletic fields.  She adored the attention, and didn’t have any issues.  The biggest thing is that Dr. Clarke is really encouraged by her response to the phenobarb.  He said that a lot of times Keppra doesn’t work as well on it’s own, but when combined with something else works great.  Hopefully that’s the case with us.  He gave us the all clear for the spay, so that will be done this coming Wednesday.  I’ll be a nervous wreck all day, but I’ll be glad to have it done and over with.  She was pretty wobbly and drunk acting last week from the meds, but that seems to have mostly worn off now.  She’s still a little ataxic, especially in her back legs, so hopefully that continues to diminish.  At least she’s now essentially back to her normal mentally.

That’s all for now, hopefully my next post will continue the good news