The night before we were to leave for holidays Nanook had another seizure. He went 5 weeks without one, then it just came out of nowhere. No signs this time at all. I guess I am feeling blessed that it happened as we were scheduled to board him the following morning. Had we boarded him, he may not have made it.
That was a week ago last Sunday. We took him to the vet the following morning and they kept him for the day. They completed blood serum/titer tests for Neospora/Toxoplasmosis/Crypto. All but the Toxo came back negative and they expect the Toxo to be negative as well. The vet called and said there was no seizure activity and as far as he can tell, Nanook is a bright eyed, happy, healthy puppy except for the seizures and said they were just stumped and ready to call it idiopathic epilepsy. He said the next seizure they would start him on Pheno.
We had a vet visit yesterday (for Thorin-he has bloody diaarhea and is throwing up bile). They rechecked Nanook and the vet was so happy... they think they finally figured out what's going on with the seizures. She had conferred with an internal specialist, went over everything in Nanooks file and determined he still has sterile meningitis. Turns out that he should have been on steroids for minimum 6-8 months with a very gradual weaning. Our vet did not realize that. She has now put him on a 60 mg dose (30 mg 2xdaily) for the first month, then will gradually lower it over the next 5-7 months. We were ecstatic!
We got home last night... he had a seizure. This one was different as in he did not foam at the mouth, it was a hard seizure but the Ictal phase was short compared to normal. He started coughing and drooling everywhere. I went on the internet and searched for coughing/seizures and was horrified. He had all the signs of Pulmonary Edema. We immediately rushed him to the hospital (30 mins away). They checked him and said they wanted to keep him over night. They called about midnight, said he had another seizure and this time vomited. They said his breathing was rapid and labored so they did a chest x-ray. They are worried that he not only may have Pulmonary Edema, but may have also aspirated stomach contents into his lungs. They put him on Lasix, waited 12 hours and did another x-ray with no visible improvement. Gave him another dose of Lasix and will be doing another x-ray. They said now, they aren't sure it's Pulmonary Edema and could be any number of things and want to do a transtracheal flush but are torn. They want to start him on antibiotics "in case" he did aspirate stomach contents or it's pneumonia of some sort but said that would hinder the transtracheal flush results.
We're just so tired. Physically and emotionally. We're not going to put him down unless they say there is nothing else that can be done, but we're struggling to meet the costs at this point. We're up to just over $7,000 and still nothing definitive. They keep telling us there's hope for him, then something else happens. Please forgive the length of the post, I just really needed to vent. Living somewhere you don't know people and have no family makes things alot tougher
