It seems odd to have to post this kind of update on blind-and-deaf Spinner after her happy "dining al fresco" post a few days ago, but we had a set back with her yesterday that was quite frightening. Spinner started having seizures a few months ago … just a few of them, several weeks apart. Our vets thought her episodes were spaced far enough apart, and the seizures themselves relatively short-lived, that it wasn’t time to intervene medically. Usually medical intervention happens when seizures are clustered, long-lasting (i.e., more than a minute), and are of the grand mal type in severity. So far she met only one of those tests, in that her seizures had been grand mals.
We crossed that threshold on all three counts yesterday. Fortunately, Spinner happened to be in the house when this occurred. We were having some trees sprayed in the front yard and had put all the dogs up, so Spinner was inside with us. I was working in my office when I heard all this thrashing coming from the dining room, and at first I thought it was Austin and Briggs the blind Beagles roughhousing with each other. No, it was Spinner seizuring under the dining table. Alayne and I rushed over and pulled her out from underneath, then hovered over her.
There’s nothing really like watching an animal (or a person, for that matter) have a seizure and feeling so helpless. As the seconds ticked by, her convulsions increased, and we realized this was another grand mal seizure. Alarmingly, it went on for nearly two minutes. Finally, Spinner started to come out of it and her body began to quiet down, but just when we thought the seizure was over … it started up again. She raised her feet off the ground, pressed her head down, and trembled and shook. I noticed her right eye was mostly closed, her left one open. Her body kept convulsing.
I pulled the phone out to call our vet clinic, and shortly I was talking with Dr. Jennifer Rockwell. Unfortunately, we didn’t have injectable Valium on hand, so Jennifer had me start Spinner on phenobarbital once the second seizure finally quit. From start to finish, Spinner was seizuring for more than three minutes … which is a long, long time for your brain to be shorting out.
Today Alayne drove Spinner over to Helena so Jennifer could begin some tests. I took the photo above of Spinner in the truck just before Alayne left for the clinic this morning. Our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Britt Culver, is on vacation, but he will do a neurological exam on Spinner when he returns.
In the meantime, Jennifer is equipping us with the injectable Valium in case we need to control any more of these seizures. Hopefully the phenobarbital won’t make that necessary. As I write this, Alayne had just called to say she was heading up MacDonald Pass from Helena on her way home with Spinner.
Because of this latest episode, Miss Al Fresco now will be spending a lot more time indoors, under close supervision, whether she wants to or not!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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