I arrived at Washington State University’s veterinary teaching hospital at 2:30 a.m. last night. When I had picked Pepper up at our vet clinic in Helena about 8 p.m., she was completely out of it … from a combination of the drugs to control her seizures and, I’m afraid, from what the seizures have done to her brain. She was still completely gorked when we got to the hospital in Pullman. She continued to twitch throughout the trip, not quite real seizures but still evidence of misfiring in her brain. In Kellogg, Idaho, I pulled over at 1 a.m. to give her one of the injections of valium that our internist in Helena, Dr. Britt Culver, had equipped me with for the journey.
It was a beautiful night for a drive across the Rockies … clear skies, stars, and the snowy mountains glistening in the bright moonlight. Yet all I could think about was the blind dog laying on the stretcher behind me, with her life teetering in the balance. As the miles wore on, I continued to reach back every ten minutes or so and touch Pepper to see if she was still breathing.
A fourth-year vet student, Alaina, helped me carry Pepper in from the truck on our stretcher when I got here. That’s Alaina you see in the photo above, along with Dr. Chad O’Brien, the emergency vet on duty last night. Her vital signs were not good … rapid heart rate and a temperature — again — of 105. Dr. O’Brien’s goal was to get Pepper stable once more and get her through the night until the neurologists could assess her this morning.
Dr. O’Brien just called and said Pepper’s temperature has come down but she is still essentially comatose, which he felt by now could no longer be explained by the medications she is on. So I am heading over to the hospital to meet with the neurologists. This is where I will be spending a good part of the day … in the lobby of the teaching hospital while I wait to see how our girl is doing. Please keep her in your thoughts. It doesn’t look good at the moment.
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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