Sunday, December 2, 2012

Friday - still not great

So last night I slept on the floor with Ernie until about midnight when he woke up. Charlotte was on the floor next to me for a bit, but she kept scrounging around looking for food... I heard her stealing treats from a bowl i had out for Ernie and then going under the couch to eat them. I never realized how loudly she eats... anyways, I finally did fall asleep. And when he woke up, we went outside. I brought the ball to see what he would do, and he ran and chased it. Whaaaaaat? A few hours ago, he was barely able to walk in a straight line and now ... Back to my thoughts of a reaction to the vincristine. How could he be acting totally drugged, and unable to walk straight and then back to himself? So weird. We went back in and he was ready to play... He finally settled down at 2am and I went back to sleep. When we woke up this morning, he was still fine. We went out and he brought his ball. When my neighbor drove up, Ernie ran up to him and followed him into the house. They invited him to stay for the day. I left for work and called later to check on him. George my neighbor said he was sleeping, but would let me know when he got up and went out to go to the bathroom. he called back and said after Ernie went to the bathroom he laid down and it took some coaxing to get him to come in. I got home at 5 and went to get him. He was completely crashed out. I went home and got his ball. He heard me squeaking it and got up, but was wobbly and drunken acting. So we walked home and he laid down. I had called the vet earlier to give and update and she called that night. I talked to her about what was going on. We talked about adding in the pred, and starting the gabapentin (I hadn't started it yet) but also we wanted to try and figure out if it was the vincristine causing this or what. And adding in too much would prevent us from really knowing. I had done some research on vincristine side effects and peripheral neuropathy is a rare side effect seen in dogs. Others on my list serve have also seen the 'wobble' post vincristine and there was a study on a 14 year old golden retriever who had the same symptoms as Ernie. Gabapentin has been used as a treatment so I decided to start that. Since i was still quite worried and unsure what was going to happen w/ him I slept on the floor again. He was on the carpet so I took the dog bed. Its actually quite comfortable :-) He slept until about 4 am. We went out and came in and I went back to bed. Saturday morning he woke up back to normal again... And was great all day long. I had to leave in the afternoon for a bit and when I got back - still ok. And then Sunday was again a great day. We spent time outside and went to the neighbors for dinner. He didn't have a single wobble all weekend. It was such a huge relief and a big weight off that things had improved so much!

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