It was filled unevenly, hence the leakage, but what a delicious dessert. Blackberries were on sale here, $0.99 / 6oz, so I had no choice but to make this. ("Chai Blackberry Pie" from The Perfect Pie cookbook!)
These started around October 2024. They seemed to just be deep ear infections exacerbated by his terrible environmental allergies. He never convulsed, lost consciousness. After these episodes recurred and failed to subside along with a recurred ear infection, we had a neurological consult and the doctor diagnosed him pretty much instantly as suffering from seizures, idiopathic, clean MRI. He started in keppra, was going okay, but then the episodes returned. Doc added phenobarbital, the episodes stopped, but his pheno levels were a bit high so we lowered the dose. That lower dose was *too* low it seemed, because he had an episode soon after the lowered pheno dose. So we met in the middle, and February–early-April were peaceful and fun! I thought we had a handle on this. But then the episodes returned again, this time almost non-stop during his waking hours. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to have them when I'm away at work (or at least didn't during all of the time I was watching on the camera—he slept soundly!). We thought it maybe had to do with stress from recent tooth extractions (the extractions were approx. two weeks before these episodes started), but he was healed by the time the seizures started, and the neurologist didn't suspect a causal relationship there. We took him to the emergency room a few nights ago. The episodes stopped when we got there and he was with the vet staff.
I trust my neurologist — he's experienced and incredibly well-respected, but this is just becoming so frustrating. I'm constantly wavering between annoyed at the constant barking/whining/climbing and dejected at how sad all of this is. His most recent suggestion is that, given the behavior during these episodes, it may be a conjunction of conditions: a seizure disorder (he thinks from a lesion or something) and perhaps canine OCD. The nature of the episodes hasn't changed since they started back in 2024, so I am confused as to why the OCD component would be new. Again, I trust him, but I feel so hopeless and afraid. I adopted Orion right when I passed my proposal defense for my dissertation. He's been with me through the hardest parts of my, through my own epilepsy disorder (temporal lobe epilepsy).
Anyway, I really just want to find some commiseration and hear from folk with experiences like mine and my dog's. I would love to know: for anyone whose dog experienced episodes like this, what did you learn about their condition? Were some of their episodes seemingly unending across the day like this? What ended up being your pet's final diagnosis? I appreciate all of you. Your support demonstrates that people are at root good and caring.
Jim