Our old Golden is having seizures...

We love Golden Retrievers. I picked up Riley, my first Golden, the day my boyfriend proposed to me. It was a romantic day and one I will never forget. He proposed to me under the fireworks with a puppy crawling between us. We were to be a family with an adopted four legged kid within a year! Three years later we were told we probably would not be able to have children, so for Christmas that year I got the meanest little whipper snapper ever, my Christmas Angel, Gabriela (Gabby). She was to complete my family of four.

I was ALWAYS getting compliments for my amazing dogs. They were my pride and joy. I don't know if it was bringing Gabby into Riley's world or just the age, but she started having seizures. She developed epilepsy and this was pretty easy to manage with meds. She was down for less than a minute, out of the seizure and soon playing like nothing ever happened.

Riley had to be put down at age ten due to health issues. It was one of the most difficult things for me to do, but at this point, we had baby number one and Riley hadn't taken too kindly to this new addition to our lives. 

We now have two children and Gabby has welcomed each of them home and loves them unconditionally.

Gabby is now almost thirteen and this past weekend had three seizures in less than 45 hours. Her first seizure was at 5 a.m. and it woke me up because she was jerking so hard. It was scary. It lasted for over 45 minutes. After she came to she was extremely disoriented, kept walking into the walls and furniture. It was scary. Her seizure was textbook Grand Mals. (I Googled it at 7 a.m. when she was finally still and resting.) I called our vet the next morning and was told to start journaling them: date/time/conditions--I knew the drill from Riley.

 

 

 

           In the mean time I called my SIL who used to work for a Veterinarian clinic and she said she had a Black Labrador who also suffered from seizures and they recommended using Corn Syrup on her lips; it will bring them out of the seizure. THANK goodness for her info. Gabby had two more seizures in less than 12 hours. I used the syrup while watching out for biting teeth and brought her out of her seizures fast. 

CORN SYRUP FOR SEIZURES. Now, I'm not a vet. I'm a Mom who will try just about anything to make her babies well. I did ask our vet about this technique this morning and she said this is an Old Wives Tale, but it is useful in diabetic dogs. Gabby isn't diabetic and her levels were normal, but during a seizure their sugar levels can change. We did decide to put Gabby on seizure medicine today to see if this changes what is going on in her precious head.

It is not normal for a twelve year old Golden to start having seizures and upon further testing we discovered our old lady has cancer and won't be around for much longer. This breaks my heart and many tears have been shed. In the mean time we will try to provide her with as much quality of life as we can.