So it’s been 6 days. In that 6 days there have been a lot of emotions, a lot of yelling, and more than a few tears as things started to sink in. Our puppy is not normal. She never will be. There are a lot of things that we wanted to do with her that she will probably never be able to do. And 6 days later, I can say “that’s ok”. We’ll figure out what she can do, and we’ll go from there.
A little bit of background for those of you who aren’t familiar. I began volunteering with a Husky rescue in our area in April. When I started working, I found out about a litter of puppies that had been born into the rescue the month before, who would be ready for adoption soon. After much discussion, Aaron and I decided to apply for one of the puppies, a female who was very laid back and sweet. We met our Shadow on May 10th at a picnic put on by the rescue, and were instantly in love. She was such a cuddle bug, and instantly got along with both of our other dogs. Shadow came home for good on May 25th and instantly meshed with our existing pack.
Shadow came into our home and right off we noticed that she slept a lot and was more clumsy than Ghost was at the same age. We chalked it up to her just being a really laid back dog that was clumsy because she was so much bigger than average (she was 21 lbs when we got her at 12 weeks). She proved to be quite the challenge to potty train, but Huskies can be super stubborn in that department. She picked up on obedience commands really quickly, so we really thought nothing of it. Little did we know… We went on vacation on July 6th, and two of my wonderful students agreed to house sit while we were gone. We thought everything was fine and dandy until one of the last days of our vacation, when we got a phone call while driving back from surfing in Oahu. One of the sitters said Shadow had fallen over and was twitching for a while, and then wouldn’t get up. It was late evening back home, so I sent her immediately to the emergency room. They kept her over night at the hospital and had her evaluated by their neurologist first thing the next morning. They were able to rule out any kind of metabolic or toxic cause to the seizures, and the neurologist was very concerned at the possibility of a serious neurologic issue. He recommended that we do an MRI as soon as we got back from vacation, so we scheduled it for last Friday the 19th.
We witnessed 2 seizures in the 24 hours we were home before the MRI, and it was pretty evident that something was really wrong. I dropped her off (one of the seizures was in their waiting room) and nervously waited for the call to come back in. It finally happened, and we both went in to go over the results of the scan. We knew it was bad when the doctor came in and said “Shadow’s brain is, well, not normal”. Basically, she has some significant congenital malformations that include missing brain tissue as well as hydrocephalus (inability to drain/absorb cerebrospinal fluid). Hydro pups can do ok, but in a lot of cases they don’t live very long. As our new reality sank in, we wrestled with a host of emotions, but mostly anger. Anger at the universe. Anger at the assholes who left her mom and dad to starve in a yard. Anger at all the people with “normal” puppies. And extreme anger at wastes of human space who have told me over the last 6 days that “it’s just a dog” or that I should “put it out of it’s misery”. They can all go do anatomically impossible things to themselves.
Shadow was put on a combination of Keppra for the seizures and Prilosec for it’s diuretic properties to control the CSF buildup in her brain. According to her neurologist, her prognosis is guarded but he thinks that if we can control the seizures she could potentially live a relatively normal life. In the last 6 days we have had no seizures, at least in front of us. And I’ve had eyes on her every single waking minute except for today when she had to go to doggy daycare because of my work commitments. I’m encouraged, but totally waiting for the other shoe to fall and for her to deteriorate. We are hopeful that we can control the CSF buildup with medication, but are saving for the possibility of shunt implant surgery. A shunt is a tube with a valve in it that drains the CSF from the spaces in the brain down to the abdomen where it can be absorbed back into the body, thus taking the pressure off the brain.
We understand and accept that Shadow will never be totally normal, and that there are some things she will just never do. She’s a little bit clumsy and appears to have some depth perception issues, and we do think she’s a little bit cognitively limited. You know what though? It doesn’t matter. She is the sweetest, most loving dog I have ever met. She’s just happy to be on board, and she isn’t suffering one bit. We may not be able to do all the things we’d planned on with her, but we can do other things. Our lives aren’t what we thought they would be 2 months ago, but no matter what, we are better for having known her.
Here’s to another 6 days seizure free…