Epilepsy 1
May 16th 2008 11:35
Some studies say as many as 4 per cent of all dogs suffer epilepsy. That is about one in every 25 dogs, so it is not uncommon.
One night, not long after our resolute, unshakable, non-negotiable conviction that Scratchy would sleep outside at night had been sheepishly reversed, I was woken by noise from the living room. It sounded like the dog was playing rugby with the cushions again. "Scratchy!" I barked, and immediately went back to sleep.
Scratchy wasn't playing rugby. He was unconscious on the floor, his body spasming violently in an epileptic seizure. He'd already had one attack the previous afternoon when nobody was home - we'd found his outside bedding scattered and Scratchy strangely shaky on his feet. And then he had a third within 30 hours, this time with both his owners there to witness the distressing sight.
Multiple events like this are known as cluster attacks. Having seen the third one, we then understood the night noise and the scattered bedding from the previous day.
On the way to the vet, we clung to the hope that it wasn't epilepsy. Two nights previously, Scratchy had decided to elope with the television remote control. He only got as far as the far corner of the back yard, where he wiled away some night hours by trying to eat the remote. He hadn't quite succeeded, but he had chewed enough to expose its innards, to guarantee that it would never work again, and to leave us with the hope that the fits were the result of some ingested battery acid or plastic poison or other radical remote ingredient.
It wasn't. Our beautiful, gentle boy has a loose wire somewhere in his brain which caused these dreadful convulsions. We now need to watch and wait, the vet said. There remains a small chance that this will be a one-off event. If not - if this happens again - bring him back and we will prescribe medication.
For life.
One night, not long after our resolute, unshakable, non-negotiable conviction that Scratchy would sleep outside at night had been sheepishly reversed, I was woken by noise from the living room. It sounded like the dog was playing rugby with the cushions again. "Scratchy!" I barked, and immediately went back to sleep.
Scratchy wasn't playing rugby. He was unconscious on the floor, his body spasming violently in an epileptic seizure. He'd already had one attack the previous afternoon when nobody was home - we'd found his outside bedding scattered and Scratchy strangely shaky on his feet. And then he had a third within 30 hours, this time with both his owners there to witness the distressing sight.
Multiple events like this are known as cluster attacks. Having seen the third one, we then understood the night noise and the scattered bedding from the previous day.
On the way to the vet, we clung to the hope that it wasn't epilepsy. Two nights previously, Scratchy had decided to elope with the television remote control. He only got as far as the far corner of the back yard, where he wiled away some night hours by trying to eat the remote. He hadn't quite succeeded, but he had chewed enough to expose its innards, to guarantee that it would never work again, and to leave us with the hope that the fits were the result of some ingested battery acid or plastic poison or other radical remote ingredient.
It wasn't. Our beautiful, gentle boy has a loose wire somewhere in his brain which caused these dreadful convulsions. We now need to watch and wait, the vet said. There remains a small chance that this will be a one-off event. If not - if this happens again - bring him back and we will prescribe medication.
For life.
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