A very long, bad night that ended OK

Monday evening started normal.  We put the dogs into their sleeping kennels around 9pm because that is as late as Julienne is willing to wait for her evening treat, then watched TV.  Around 11:30 Randy went into the bedroom to unmake the bed, and suddenly called out to me.  He had Julienne's kennel on the bed and was trying to get her out of it because she was having a very bad seizure.  Her little body was so stiff that he quickly realized he needed to take the top off the kennel to get to her.  She had vomited all over and was in a full-body seizure, with her back fully arched, her legs out stiff and scrambling, and her head pulled back as far as it would go.

Julienne started having seizures in Alaska, shortly after snacking out of the litter box.  On that night she had seizures for about 30 minutes.  Since then she has occasionally started to have a seizure, but we have always been able to get to her just as it starts.  We found that if we turn off all the lights and TV and Randy holds her quietly in the dark, it doesn't get out of hand.

But this one got out of hand before we knew about it.  We tried the usual techniques but although the seizure stopped, about 1 minute later she went right into another one, and it just kept happening.  Randy held her while I looked up treatments on the internet.  I learned these are called "cluster" seizures and I only found 2 ideas for treatment - cool washcloths to reduce the dangerous increase in body heat, and Valium suppositories to stop the muscle spasms.  Since we don't have Valium, I started putting wet washcloths on her back and on her little head.  We kept thinking the worst was over, and then it would start again.  She was never panicky or angry - she was just waiting for it to stop.  We don't know any vets here and did not know where to take her after midnight.  Randy kept her from hurting herself during the seizure, and sweet-talking and cuddling her afterwards.  When she seized, her back legs would scramble wildly and she would have scratched herself badly if it wasn't for Randy.  He got scratched a good bit, but she didn't.  I decided to give her some Rescue Remedy that I got from Heather in Arizona.  It's not specifically for seizures, it's just supposed to calm down a pet, but I was out of ideas.  I'm not sure if the seizures were ready to stop or if that helped, but about 20 minutes later the seizures slowed down to about every 5 minutes.  By then she was trying to sleep between the seizures.  So we took her to bed with us, and she settled down immediately and went to sleep.  The poor little girl was so tired and no wonder - we realized this had been going on for 3 hours!  We didn't get much sleep because, although she was snuggled in next to us and we would have woken up instantly if she had jerked even a little, we kept checking her all night.

The next morning Julienne was relaxed, happy and ready to go!  I cannot say the same for us - we were so tired.  I took her to the vet to get a complete checkup.  She got a clean bill of health and the vet agrees that she probably has epilepsy.  The problem with Valium in any form is that it doesn't keep well, and since Julienne has had 2 bad seizures in 3 years, it probably is not the answer.  There are anti-seizure medicines but they all have side-effects, especially to the liver.  The vet gave me literature on the medications so we can decide what we want to do, and an emergency number to call if we get another night like that.  May we NEVER have another night like that!

But for now, all is well, thank God!