My 7 y/o dog was found having seizures by my step-dad. Need advice
I have a 7 year old Labrador mix. This happened all of a sudden. I was out of state for the weekend with my mom to attend my brother's graduation. My stepdad was taking care of our family dog. The night we left he described her odd behavior as if she was "drunk" and walking funny. We thought maybe she hurt one of her paws or something and didn't think much of it. Next morning she was fine before my step-dad left for work. He came back several hours later to find her on the ground having seizures non-stop. It was extremely painful to see this on FaceTime knowing I couldn't do anything. He rushed her to the vet hospital and they have started treating her right away giving her a 30% survival chance. We paid a lot of money but their attitude has been always "we need to look at other options" because she could have suffered heavy brain damage. So even if they stabilize her, her neurological condition was unknown. We didn't give up on her that quick and paid a shit ton of money for the 24 hour ICU care. We get a call 6 AM from the doctor saying she opened her eyes to look around but was kind of "unresponsive" to the neurological tests. He made it sound like she was brain dead with her eyes open. Few hours later, I had arrived back home to see her in person and she was significantly looking much better. Her eyes were open and she recognized and reacted to her name which was a great result. They did more diagnostics to see if she ate something poisonous which was our main theory but chest and stomach xrays showed she has a solid which the doctor thinks it could be sand. I dont even knkw why she would eat sand. She stays in our backyard most of the time but she hasnt had this issue for 7 years and now suddenly she has sand in her stomach? Her current condition is she is alert, recognizes us, and has even more energy than this morning. The main issue is she has trouble breathing and her chest xray shows only one of her lungs is functioning as the other one has a lot of fluid (pneumonia). Throughout this experience, I felt like the vets have been hopeless regarding her condition and we have been the ones who kept pushing the vets to continue with treatment. We are very low on funds in general and already took out 3 loans for another night in the ICU, hoping she gets better for tomorrow. I'm not sure exactly where to go from there because I don't see how we can afford another night in ICU but in my opinion she has shown significant improvement since she opened her eyes this morning. I'm looking for advice on, if she can breathe on her own for tomorrow, should we take her in and wait for this sand to pass by at home? Or take her to a vet clinic instead of the emergency services? We're just emotionally exhausted and hoping for best tomorrow. She is currently in O2 chamber with supplemental O2 for the night but she is already trying to almost stand up. Its only been 24 hours since her seizures and she is a strong super energetic dog. We don't want to put her down obviously but since shes walked in to the ER, the vets have been pushing for this option...