So some of you may remember this post where I talked about how our husky had a seizure for the very first time. Sadly he had two more after that, the latest being this past Thursday.
Since this was clearly not a one time event when it happened the second time, we decided to rule out environmental factors as recommended by my vet friend. We thought perhaps something in the back yard that he was finding his way into was the cause, so my roommate and I pulled up all the wild plant life that was growing back there and started letting him out in the front of our building instead because there's a tree in the yard that we think is a crab apple or something similar and he might also be eating those. Sadly he had a third seizure, so we knew this was something serious and took him in to a vet.
The vet listed what she thought were the three biggest possibilities - liver or kidney disease, a brain tumor or something similar, and just your standard epilepsy. He's about the right age for plain old epilepsy to be settling in, and apparently huskies just generally show having a slightly higher rate than other dog breeds.
So we got him expensive blood tests that came back clean, ruling out liver or kidney disease. While we'd love to get him a CT scan to rule out a brain tumor or other brain issues the expense of that is.....a lot more than we can afford. Like up to $35,000 expensive just to rule something out.
Instead of taking that route we decided to just start him on medications. Every 8 hours we have to use a pill gun to medicate him because, understandably, he doesn't want to take them. We were warned the side effects while he adjusted to the drugs would be dizziness, loss of balance and lethargy and he's showing all the signs. He doesn't have the capacity to understand what's happening to him with the epilepsy or the medications, and he's started to develop serious anxiety because of it. To the point where outside of grocery shopping we don't both go out at the same time anymore, because if one of us isn't home he just gets really anxious and upset. Which I understand because I'm pretty sure the seizures are scary for him and I'd be worried about being alone with a seizure disorder too.
What we're hoping is that the medication will be able to stop or at least lessen the severity of his seizures. If it doesn't we'll have to keep upping the dose and doing stronger medications until we get to the point where the strongest meds at the highest levels do nothing for him. If it comes to that my roommate and I have agreed we will just put him down, because even if we pay for the CT scan that's just a diagnostic tool. If he comes back positive for something in his brain at that point we're looking at $100,000+ for surgery, assuming that the cause is even something they think they can operate on because most brain issues aren't. And if he comes back negative then it's just the epilepsy having become so bad they can't do anything for him anyway. If we reach that point his quality of life will have declined so badly that no matter what the cause it's just kinder to put him down.
Again, we hope it will never come to that. We hope his current medications will be enough, even if he'll have to be on them for life. But if not we will take all the necessary steps to ensure his medical health and what is best for him.
And now, here's a picture of the little bugger. He's healthy for now, and a few nights ago finally managed to destroy his bronto toy, tearing out the stuffing and the squeaker. Said squeaker is now proudly in our Jar of Destroyed Toys XD
