Carpe Diem.
Vinnie must have misunderstood.
I told him to seize the day and he heard 'seize today' and he did.
Yesterday I was on the couch eating yogurt for lunch. Vinnie was doing what Vinnie does -- lying on the rug snoozing after failing to talk me out of my lunch. Suddenly he jumped up like something bit him. See, Vinnie does this a lot because he's "nervous as a cat" (that's what the vet said) and so I didn't think anything of it. I poked fun at him like I normally do when he startles at nothing.
But this time it was different.
Vinnie couldn't seem to place weight on his left hind leg. Then it spread and he couldn't get his hindquarters beneath him. He tried to make it over to me but his legs wouldn't cooperate and he ended up on his belly, trembling. He tried again and seemed to be looking for something beneath the couch, then beneath the TV. Alarmed, I approached him but was admittedly nervous -- Vinnie isn't a biter and has never bitten anyone but there's always a first and he just looked so strange. I didn't think he was in pain because he didn't yelp, but still. I tried to figure out what was wrong but he belly-crawled away, still shaking, still unable to work his back legs.
I realized that I like Vinnie a lot more than I thought I did.
Frantic, I called Greg. "Something's wrong with Vinnie," I told him. "I'm taking him to the vet." I called his usual vet to see if I needed to bring him in right away. "I think he's seizing," I told them, "but I'm not sure. He's never done this before. Should he be seen immediately? If so, I'll need to take him someplace closer." The woman on the other end assured me that this was not life-threatening but Vinnie should be seen within 24 hours or so -- earlier if I wanted to take him elsewhere.
Next, I called a clinic closer to home. No dice, there would be no vet there until 1:30 p.m. Finally, after ending this call Vinnie's seizure began to subside as I called his usual vet back to make an appointment for this morning. I was left with that feeling people get after something like this -- that feeling that leaves you questioning whether you really saw what you saw.
This morning I hauled Vinnie all the way to his vet in High Ridge. Vinnie is perfectly willing to ride in the car, loves to in fact, but he's not a complete idiot so it didn't take long for him to realize where we were. There was another dog and a cat in the waiting room and Vinnie is animal-aggressive, so...
Eventually we made it into the exam room and the vet had a long talk with me about how common epilepsy is in dogs and he didn't think Vinnie would have an underlying, more serious reason for it, but we did blood work just to be sure. He told me that in a busy practice, it is unusual to go 2 weeks without seeing a dog with seizures.
So Vinnie is an epileptic, but it's probably nothing to worry about. We certainly hope it isn't something requiring very very serious treatment, because we couldn't do that.
And the good news -- Vinnie is down a total of 6 pounds. Yay, Vinnie!
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