Horrific

My sweet little Lilly had a seizure the other day. So far it was an isolated occurrence and we are hoping it stays that way.

It was a normal afternoon, just sitting on the patio grilling out - Lilly was playing with her frisbee with her typical spaziness. All of a sudden we look over and she is trying to get up and can't, and it looked like she was choking. I immediately went into extreme panic. I tried to open her mouth to see if she was choking on something but her jaw was locked. I could feel that she was breathing out her nose so she wasn't choking - had to be a seizure. As panicked as we were we could see it in her eyes that she was extremely scared and we knew that we needed to keep her calm - the last thing she needed to see was me as a hysterical mess. Todd and I stood over her trying to sooth her, petting her and telling her it was OK. We were terrified and had NO idea what to do. My mind was racing - what should we do? Drive 40 minutes to the animal emergency room? Wait till it passes? It seemed like an eternity, reality - it lasted about 2 minutes. She slowly began to breath a little more regular and she started to regain her focus and react to us. Another minute or two passed and would you believe that dog picked up her frisbee and was ready to play.

Now it's OK to commence the breakdown. But instead, I pulled myself together and grabbed the laptop. I looked at every article on the entire Internet on dog seizures and I feel a little reassured. One article mentioned this can happen to dogs and may never happen again. As far as what caused it we may never know. Could have been overheated (she has been cooped up all winter and isn't in the best shape), could have gotten into something toxic (i.e. battery, golf ball casing, chemicals) or could have been a hypoglycemic attack or something else entirely. All I know is I never want it to happen again. (By the way - I also read never ever try to pry a dog's mouth open during a seizure, you will almost certainly get bit. Oops.)

It's seriously unnatural how much we (oh yes, Todd too) love this dog. I truly thought she was going to die right in front of me and it was the scariest two minutes of my life. Now every little squeak or sneeze from her I freak out. I'm sure my paranoia will pass.

I'm so glad she is OK and back to her normal energetic self. And now Todd has been calling her seizure head. So inappropriate. But that's us.