4 Paws For Alex

Hi Folks,

     Well we had an exciting day today and it was not in a good way.  Just after lunch Alex had an absence seizure at school.  He did seem not himself today, kind of droopy.  So much for the Dec. 18th day (last time he had a seizure), but life was good until today, but today brought us back down to earth.

     The school called Deanna early in the morning indicating that Alex did not seem himself today, not too engaged.  That after having a really good day yesterday getting a star from the physical therapy teacher.  Then in a few hours they called again this time indicating that he was having an absence seizure but it wasn't exactly worded that way.  The way it was phrased was Alex isn't responding.  Well that made Deanna jump to conclusions like he was having a Grand Mal Seizure and wasn't coming out of it.  All this happened so quickly. 

     Today Deanna wasn't close by (doesn't she feel guilty about that) so anyone who reads this please re-assure her that it wasn't her fault, there was no warning signs that this would happen.  Since this is the first time the school had witnessed this type of seizure it took them by surprise.  Deanna spoke to the primary care doctor and the attending at Childrens Hospital (Boston) (Alex's Doctor was out of town).  The doctor at Children's did say Alex was diagnosed with epilepsy (ie Doose Syndrome) so this was to be expected.   She told them the symptoms and that Alex just got over a bout of high fever and since Alex had such a "good spell" recently  they thought it would be precautionary to send him to the emergency room to get checked out.  Since Deanna wasn't local yet (30 minutes away) she called the always reliable Grandpa (Thanks Grandpa!) to go to the school and be with him while waiting for the ambulence to arrive. 

     The school did a good job of not making a scene having paramedics take Alex out of the classroom, they made sure that the halls were clear so the event did not freak out some of the other children.

     Needless to say that Alex, Honor and Grandpa got an ambulence ride to UMass Hospital in Worcester.  I myself was at work and immediately got in the car and headed for home or the hospital.  Deanna actually arrived a few minutes after the ambulence did so that made her feel a little better.

     When I arrived in Auburn, I stopped by the house to see if Deanna needed anything which she didn't but it gave me a chance to let the other dogs (Brady & Bro) out to do their business.

     Once I reached the hospital I asked for Alex's room and had to wait a few moments for someone to bring me to the room.  Once there I found Alex in good spirits but a little on the tired side.  The Doctor arrived to the room shortly after I did and started talking to Mom about the events leading up to his arrival at UMass and going over his history, you would think they have a chart on him and can read it before coming into the room since the isn't his first visit to UMass.  I guess that is the way it always is.  Just to be on the safe side we asked them to do blood work to see if his cell counts were normal or if they indicated a virus coming on.  It was good to ask for the re-assurance but the process of extracting the blood was terrible.  They had to attempt in three different spot before they got a good vein.  Alex was screaming like a banshee and Honor was worried pacing back and forth since he could not make it near Alex since there were three nurses plus Mom on one side and me on the other trying to stop Alex from looking at it.

     After the blood was drawn, Honor jumped up on the bed and stayed until Alex said Honor was sitting on his legs (ie the Lap command) besides that the beds are small.  We found out shortly after that all his blood counts were good and we were cleared for departure.

     Since we were not at school we could not observe Honor's behavior to what went on in school, Honor was trained with the tonic clonic seizure not an absence seizure so there is no guarantee that Honor would give a warning bark, but even still he did comfort Alex during today's visit to the ER.

     Alex did open some eyes at the ER having Honor with him more in amazement than shock, but since Honor is so friendly he got a lot of praise from the nurses.

         Having today's incident while we would have liked it not to happen, it has already highlighted Alex's condition and how unpredictable it is.  Alex's current aide had never witnessed  a spell like this but that is the nature of Alex's condition.

     Looks like it is back to light sleeping and constantly monitoring Alex closely again until Alex demonstrates a "good speel" again.  This has definitely brought us back down to earth and will heighten our awareness and force us to monitor him more closely.