Gordo's Latest Surprise

Gordo shocked and startled us last month by having an epileptic seizure. We took him to the vet right away and he was put on phenobarbital. He had a couple more seizures, one in the middle of the night. We raced him to the emergency vet clinic at about 0330 in the morning on Saturday and they kept him until Monday morning. Then we took him to the substitute vet (our vet was away at a conference). He's now on KBr (potassium bromide) and we're phasing out the phenobarbital. The KBr is easier on his body, particularly his liver, and doesn't make him so drowsy. He hasn't had any more seizures since.

Gordo goes over next week to have blood drawn, so we can see what the KBr level is. If it's good enough, we may be able to pack up and go to Palm Desert. We have a very good vet down there and our local vet is very confident that he can hand the case off without any great concern. Apparently, epilepsy is fairly common in dogs and controlling it is well-understood.

If the blood levels aren't good enough, we'll have to go back in another ten days and do it all again. By then he'll be off the phenobarbital completely and we'll be hoping that the KBr will do the job. That'll get us out of town around Christmas. We're already into the time of year that we have to plan our trip around the weather. We have to go over three passes to get to the Low Desert, although one of them, Banning Pass, is too low for snow but does sometime have fierce winds.

This will be Gordo's first long car trip since he came from Simi Valley. I'm hoping it isn't too stressful for him, because stress can bring on a seizure. He seems to deal very well with new experiences, though, so he may well take the whole thing in stride and have no problems.

I, on the other hand, will be panicking once we get down there, as my office is absolutely not puppy proof. I'm going to have to pick a lot of stuff up before I can let him in there. He doesn't seem inclined to take books off shelves, but the yarn is at real risk. He loves balls of yarn even better than he loves his stuffed toys. Soft, good mouth feel, the excitement of the chase--what more could a puppy want?