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He shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to clear her from his mind. Thankfully, he hadn’t sold the condo. He would pack things up and move back to his place this weekend. He moved to the window and looked down on Jill’s yard.
“What the hell?” Andrew said out loud as he watched Jill drive her SUV through her grandparent’s backyard, bouncing over the lawn. Jill stopped when she came to the pool, unable to go further.
He watched as she got out of the truck and ran around the pool. That’s when Andrew saw what she was trying to do. Rev was laying on the ground seizing and Jill was struggling to lift him and carry him to her SUV. But eighty pounds of dead weight was clearly more than she could lift for long at a stretch.
“Shit!” he spit the word out as he ran through the door and over to Jill’s yard through the woods.
“Jill,” he shouted as he came around the back of the fence and jogged toward her.
“He’s been seizing for fifteen minutes. I have to get him to the emergency vet.” There were tears streaming down her face as she struggled to lift the dog.
“I’ve got him, honey. I’ve got him.” He lifted Rev and ran to the SUV as Jill followed behind.
“I’ll drive. You ride with him,” he said as he carefully placed Rev onto the back seat and helped Jill climb in.
Andrew ran around to the front seat and shoved the car in reverse, backing it out of the backyard and onto the driveway.
“Where is the emergency vet?” He asked.
Jill clung to Rev and tried to catch her breath and calm herself.
“On Chase Parkway, near Route 64.” She pulled out her cell phone to call and let the vet know she was on her way.
Jill had programmed the number into her phone when Rev was first diagnosed with epilepsy, just in case she ever needed to bring him in after hours for something like this.
Her vet told her if Rev ever seized for longer than five minutes, she needed to take him right in for intravenous anticonvulsants. She was timing carefully. It had already been twenty-two minutes for the seizure by the time Andrew pulled into the vet’s parking lot.
Andrew picked up Rev while Jill opened the door to the clinic. Two technicians met them in the lobby to take them straight back to an exam room.
When they entered the room, Andrew was instructed to put Rev on the table and they began to fire a series of questions about Rev’s age, general health, previous seizures and this particular episode.
Within minutes, the doctor entered the room and began to administer medications that would, it was hoped, stop the seizure.
Without looking up, the doctor began to explain what she was doing. “I only have a few more minutes to try to stop this within the thirty-minute window we need to shoot for so I’d like to administer meds and explain later. Do I have your authorization to do that?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Jill said. She and her veterinarian had already discussed the danger of a seizure that lasted this long. She knew they needed to stop the seizure before permanent damage was done to his brain.
Rev usually appeared somewhat aware of Jill when he was seizing but now he seemed completely unaware of her and his surroundings. This was worse than anything she’d seen in the past.
The vet tech said his temperature was already at 105. Jill’s palms were sweating and she was still shaking from the effort she had exerted trying to get Rev here and the panic she felt when he convulsed.
She watched as the doctor began pushing several medications into the IV and then began to recheck Rev’s vital signs. After a few minutes, the doctor turned to Jill and Andrew.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Kerry. Sorry for the late introduction. This is the first time Rev has had a seizure of this length, correct?”
“Yes.” Jill nodded as she spoke and put one hand on Rev’s leg. She wanted to feel a connection to him and was relieved to feel the tense spasms had left his body already.
“What happened was called status epilepticus. It’s essentially any seizure that lasts longer than five minutes. The seizure puts a great deal of strain on the animal’s body, which is one of the reasons we saw Rev’s temperature shoot up. If we aren’t able to stop it quickly, there can be lasting effects, but I think we got to him just in time,” Dr. Kerry explained.
“I’ve given him Diazepam to stop the seizing quickly and Phenobarbital to prevent the seizure starting up again. The Diazepam is fast acting, but it only lasts fifteen to thirty minutes so we need the Phenobarbital on board before the Diazepam wears off.”
“Can you tell if there’s any permanent damage?” Andrew asked before Jill could and she was glad for his warm strength beside her. She wouldn’t have made it here on time if he hadn’t come to help.
“At this point we need to wait and see how he responds to the medications. I think, since he’s a young, healthy dog and we got to him within the thirty-minute window, he should be fine. I’d like to keep Rev here overnight so we can monitor him and then, if he responds well, you can pick him up tomorrow. You’ll need to see your regular veterinarian about getting him on a medication regimen to prevent this from happening again.”
“Can we stay with him for a bit?” Jill asked but then winced as she thought that Andrew probably had no interest in staying with her. She should probably offer to take him home, but he nodded at her when she glanced at him.
“Yes. The Phenobarbital is going to keep him under for a while. I had to give him a fairly high dosage so it will have an anesthetic effect for a couple of hours. You can sit with him while we get an overnight suite set up for him. You can come back and visit him early in the morning if you want to but I’d prefer not to release him until tomorrow evening. I want at least twenty-four hours to monitor him.”
