Lester

Regulating the dosage of the phenobarbitol will hopefully prevent future seizures in the poor old guy. He had another last Friday (April 20) this one with a bloody nose. The vets are suspecting a brain tumor or lesion, which means he probably doesn't have much time left, but as long as the seizures stop and he is relatively stable, he gets to hang around with us a bit longer. As far as I am concerned, as long as he is still enjoying his walks and begging for food, he is my big old guy and not the poor suffering dog that you would think he should be. The down side is that he appears to be blind in one eye, mostly deaf, peeing out of control, and losing more and more use of his already aching back end. Hang in there, Lester!

The weather has been cold for spring, with snow flurries, hail, sleet. There have been a few great days here and there, but nighttime temps have been in the low 30s and even 20s.

Since I have been getting up several times a night with the big old dog, I am praying for warmer temps to make both of our lives easier.

Happy Birthday, little sister!

My youngest sister is the only person I know who treats her own birthday as if it were a national holiday every year.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY little sista! Hope you had a very enjoyable day receiving all of those phone calls and texts.

BTW, my hair used to be that curly!

The Old Guy rallies

Lester had a total of 4 seizures since the last post. He is on a low dose of medication to prevent them (phenobarbitol) and it must be working because he hasn't had a seizure since Easter Sunday at 3:30 am. He has good days and bad, but I think now that our friend Dr. Lucy has straightened out the dosing, the Old Guy is on the mend. We still don't know what is causing the seizures, and that could be any number of bad things, but at least my old pester's personality is coming back.

We had a nice long walk on this lovely spring-like day. We went to see our favorite mechanic, who keeps a big box of big Milk Bones in his office. Lester wanted me to post these photos so that everyone can see he's back to normal. Let's hope that normal lasts a good long while!

Home again, home again, lickety split!

Had a big scare with the big Lester yesterday. He had 2 seizures: one at 5 am, and one at 1 pm. I couldn't call the vet until 9 am yesterday, which was torture, sitting there with the poor guy waiting to find out what to do. But the answer was not to do anything, that they don't treat older dogs with anticonvulsant meds, and the actual seizures won't hurt him.

He recovered completely from the first one after about an hour and a half, and I thought all was back to normal, but then he had another one after lunch. So I brought him in to the vet. They kept him overnight, which I was none too happy about. I'm sure that he wasn't either, especially because no one is in there at night, and he's such a big Mama's boy. But he made it through OK, and I just brought him home a little while ago. Check out his smiley face 10 minutes after he came through the door.

Blood work showed an infection, probably bacterial, and they are hoping that was the cause of the seizures, because it is easily treated with antibiotics. If that is not the cause, and he continues to have them after the infection is gone, the other possible causes are not pretty. It may mean a brain tumor, or lesion, neither of which is easily treated.

So now we are on hold until next week when they'll test his blood again to be sure he is on the proper antibiotic. I just have to pray he doesn't have any more seizures, because they are just too scary to watch—mostly because I can't do anything to help him. Poor old guy!

And an update on the wandering Sophie: She did it again—wandered off just a few days later. I watched her this time, and saw her headed in the same direction. So I jumped in the car and drove back there. She was in almost exactly the same spot as the last time, but this time refused to come even when she saw me. Stinker! So I had to trudge through the briars and muck to go get her, and there I found the reason for her interest in this spot—a dead deer, all to herself because Lester doesn't even know it's there. Stinker! (literally)

So now I either walk with them on the leash, or I keep them right with me and herd them back into the house before they can get into any trouble... Yeah...right...