Not Yet

I was preparing myself to write an RIP post today because I was fairly convinced we would terminate Jake’s life.  My son Dan, who had thoroughly researched his condition on the Internet, was of a very different opinion about what we should do.  We kept annoying him by saying things like, “Are you thinking about yourself or the dog?”

This afternoon we had a consultation with his regular vet, as opposed to the emergency care hospital where he had been treated.  She was very supportive of the care he had received there and the course of treatment they had prescribed.  She was not at all surprised at the fact that he was wobbling and periodically collapsing to the floor, saying the adjustment to any anti-seizure medication takes at least a week accompanied by a period of “drunken” behavior.  

So instead of putting him down, she suggested we take him home, restrict him to a space with no stairs, give him plenty of light to assist his greatly diminished vision, and just wait for a week to 10 days.  She was fairly confident that his system would adjust to the meditation and the side-effects would subside.  She said there is a strong likelihood that he has a brain tumor, but that they are slow-growing in older dogs.

So tonight we will all go upstairs to bed, leaving Jake in the family room, where he will undoubtedly detect that we are not there.  (Dan slept with him on the floor last night.)  And tomorrow we will watch for additional signs that Jake is settling in to his life post-seizure.  And most of all we will hope the meds work to steer off future seizures.

His day will eventually come, but it wasn’t today.