Tag: energy

January 2010

The new year began with two seizures, around 4 and 6 a.m.  January 2. There was a lull until January 9, but I knew by then I had to address the seizures and try to give Percy some relief from them. I was in more contact then with the holistic vet, but she was about to leave the country for a few weeks, so back to our regular vet I went and we talked about how to begin introducing the phenobarbital and what to expect. Percy seized again on the 13th and twice the morning of the 15th; I began giving him the phenobarbital January 16, working up within a few days from an extremely low to a low dose.

The difference was nearly immediate and so positive I wished I had begun the medication much earlier. The time between seizures was stretched to nearly every two weeks during that first month, and the seizures seemed somewhat less severe, were shorter, and Percy did not urinate. Percy seemed himself again– I did not realize how much the seizures must have been affecting him until we began the medication. He did not seem lethargic or drugged, a typical side effect, in fact he seemed to gain energy from not having the seizures and also began to exhibit another side effect, ravenous hunger. He would jump up to grab food from counters or put his head in an open frig at every chance, and while with a normal puppy this of course would be verboten I was less dismayed and barely discouraged this behavior in Percy as it represented positive life force at that point. But it was a balancing act, as feeding him as much as he could eat would have strained his kidneys.

Percy seemed more like an almost-normal puppy again, though he remained small– he was not really growing and he gained just a little more weight, eventually nudging up briefly to 50 pounds– and his energy level remained somewhat limited.

January 13 BUN 88 (the lowest we ever saw it for Percy, but still a level that would render most dogs miserably  ill), creatinine 5.2, phosphorus 11.7

September 2009: first seizures

As I describe in Percy’s World, the first sign that anything was amiss with Percy was an epileptic-like seizure he suffered early in the evening of September 15. He was exactly three and a half months old. I brought him in for bloodwork the 17th and by the 19th we knew his kidney functions were very abnormal. The following day, a Sunday, Percy suffered a second seizure, again in the evening while he was napping. It was never clear if the seizures were caused by the imbalance in his system due to the kidney disease, or if it could be a separate idiopathic epilepsy. But in terms of his kidneys, the next step was to do an ultrasound to see their morphology. Short of doing a biopsy of the kidney tissue this would give the most comprehensive diagnosis.

There was a delay of several weeks until the ultrasound was done, and in that time I was just in a state of suspended shock about Percy. The numbers could not lie, and they were so dramatically off as to be incontestably bad. But Percy, except for the two seizures, still seemed pretty normal– though I of course began to watch him more closely. Was he somewhat less active than our other pups had been? Was he really drinking more? He was gaining weight and growing the typical Spinone beard. Who could believe this bundle of sweet energy would have a severely limited lifespan?

Towards the end of the month I found drops of blood here and there on the floor and where Percy slept. I looked him over and found nothing external. Then I looked in his mouth, and found what appeared to be an ulcerated abscess on his left upper gum. It was red, inflamed, and bleeding just a little. Though I did not see any foreign body protruding, this was a not-yet four-month old puppy, so I thought he must have chewed a stick or something of that sort and a piece had gotten lodged in his gum. Of course, this was a weekend. Percy did not seem feverish or especially bothered by it, but given everything else that was going on it needed attention. I brought him to the clinic the next day but nothing beyond the ulcer was apparent, so we began a round of Clavamox. The ulcer healed, but a few months later there would be a reappearance.

September 17 Bloodwork results showing abnormal kidney functions: BUN 120, creatinine 3.3, phosphorus 11.6. Normal levels are considered within a range of 7-27 for BUN, .4-1.8 for creatinine , and 2.2-6.3 for phosphorus.