Dogs can live with epilepsy just fine; there is nothing miserable or horrific about their lives if they treated appropriately.
She did not extend any credit to me until the day before Zusje died. All my bills were paid immediately, in full.
And diazepam is very cheap. A whole lot cheaper than the emergency vet.
I can’t regret the choices I made then as far as not going to a different vet right away; I have learned many lessons through this, that’s for sure.
Thank you so much for remembering… yes, she was a doll and she remained so. She was without question the sweetest dog I have ever known. She was all light and love and cuddles and play and not once did she ever show the slightest hint of grumpiness towards any living thing, nor did she ever show fear.(Even in the postictal period following seizures; she would be nuts, pacing all over, pretty much blind and deaf and crashing into walls, but she was perfectly cheerful about it always and never afraid. And when she would finally come to her senses, she had an attitude of “Well, that happened…la dee da…”)
She was difficult, though, because I was such a sucker for her deliciousness that I gave in to her in a way I never have to any dog before, which made her a pain in the ass, but only because all she wanted always was to be with me and Preston, and anything that disrupted that made her unhappy. And an unhappy Zusje was heartbreakingly adorable. So we both gave in to her manipulations all the time.
And now I’m glad I did, since her life was so brief. I’m also glad I did because her need to be near me led to my letting her sleep with me, which meant letting Preston sleep with me, and that’s something that did not exist previously. (I used to sleep with my cockers years ago but got sick of the hair and decided that being in the bed was going to be strictly a special occasion thing going forward, and it was until Zu, who taught me that short haired dogs like pits are incredibly delightful to cuddle with for lots of reasons, not the least being their super short hair feels more like skin, and their body warmth is right there. This was a revelation to me, as I had always had supper fuzzy dogs.) So now that she’s gone I’m absurdly grateful that she left us that legacy because it’s helped enormously with dealing with my grief to have him right here with me.
But outside of that:
to continue regarding my Handsome Black Boyfriend (did you remember him from other posts, or did you just watch the video?) and how he’s doing with his baby sister suddenly disappeared: we are both a mixed bag, really. In his case, he is definitely enjoying the copious amounts of attention and “Us-ness” that we are having. As I was saying, outside of the sleeping together, which is an enhancement, we have fallen right back into the rhythms we had for years before she came. Rhythms that both of us love… we are a Pack of Two again, and we do that very well. He’s a remarkably intelligent and focused dog and the “upside”, if you will, of Zusje’s passing is being able to enjoy my boy, who has been spontaneously praised for being “perfect” by many people. (Seriously… he’s an amazing dog.) With Zu here, I had to do lots of things very differently to keep her contained, and I had to deal with her separation anxiety and all that disrupted the excellent flow that Preston and I always had. So we’re enjoying that, enjoying the considerable reduction of stress that came along with my little sweetie.
On the other hand, he has been grieving her, too. He misses her, I can see it in the way he’s seeking play from me and my roommate. I got her in part because he does love to play and I couldn’t give him what another dog could and she did in spades. We’re biking a lot, though, something we largely stopped because it meant leaving her home, even if she got to bike first she still threw a fit when we would go.
I wanted to comment about the loss of such a young dog. I was a mess for about five days right after she died. Having really intense, hardcore grief spirals… you know, the kind where you scream as hard as you can into your pillow and cry so much your face throbs? Maybe it’s just me…but I did that alternately with slipping to a grief coma, sleeping for hours and hours, all day and night.
But after that I pulled it together and I’ve been managing pretty well. Missing her, but doing okay.
Until two days ago. I was washing dishes, thinking about how Preston and I were back in our familiar rhythm and it suddenly washed over me that it felt like a dream, truly, the whole two and half years she was with us felt like it was just a dream. And that feeling/thought just made me buckle, and I’m not completely clear on why, other than the fact that she was so young, it was so brief, I feel so robbed…
Hardly. See my previous and j666:
In fact, there’s nothing all that miserable or horrific about the actual seizures, not for them. They are very disturbing to observe, but the dog has zero awareness of it.
They are, as I also described above, a little nuts immediately afterwards, but even that is no big. They usually recover themselves just fine and as far as they are concerned, life is awesome, what’s the big deal?
One of the greatest lessons dogs teach us, in fact, is how to be entirely in the present. They are not the slightest bit disturbed about things that happened yesterday, especially if they were not conscious or aware while they were happening to begin with.
Hmmm. Something to ponder. I have written a letter to her that I plan to give to her with my first payment against what I owe her for her contributions to Zusje’s death spiral. It’s very carefully composed, but boiled down it says: “Your paranoia was irresponsible and killed my dog. Please don’t let her death be completely wasted, and don’t do that to anyone else.”
You know, I think you should just let it go to some degree. I understand how you could hold some anger about this but vets and MDs are under a lot of increasing pressure to be careful with handing out these kinds of meds. An angry letter to the state board is not going to get her in trouble. Maybe an heartfelt letter, without even specifically naming her, or joining/starting a letter campaign could get them to loosen up on this issue.
I’ve lost a few canine buddies in my time. I know it’s hard. I wish you the best.
Only when the dog for whom it was prescribed was already dead and other human friends kill themselves. Unless more friends start offing themselves :eek: there’s not much reason to be concerned. Hell, the cops weren’t worried, why the hell should my vet be?
The best comedy is based in truth and I’ve been thinking a lot about Louis CK’s bit:
So true. I have never spent one single hour of my adult life without a dog, and I plan for that to be the case until the end. But it does mean cycling into incredibly deep grief periodically. The irony here is that the real driving factor in my getting Zusje was my deep love and connection to Preston, and my anticipation of having to endure the crushing grief I know I will feel upon his death. The idea of keeping us a Pack of Two until his end, without an already-established connection with another dog to help me cope with it was (and is) simply intolerable. I think it would break me. I have to have someone of the four-legged kind already part of my life. So I got the Zubeedoo…and here we are. Fuck!
The cops didn’t know your dog was dead, they looked away because they didn’t know what you were planning to do with the syringes and they had a bigger things to deal with at the moment. But, I assure you, if your friend was still alive and panicking at the moment and you gave him an ass or mouthful of valium, there’s a good chance you would have received a citation for illegally transferring controlled substances. Even if it was a CYA thing for the cops so if something went wrong later on, they’d be in the clear.
As it stands, you didn’t actually do anything illegal. There’s nothing illegal about about dropping Valium out of your purse if you have a script for it.
And the vet should be considerably more concerned that you were about to hand it out. If the cops aren’t worried chances are nothing will become of it, but the vet could get in trouble with the DEA if they found out an owner was handing out Valium…even moreso if they prescribed more of it to that person.
The police and the vet have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. OTOH, it’s a small world and maybe one of the cops, totally coincidentally, mentioned it your vet (hey, you’ll never guess what happened on a call tonight…what, that’s one of your patients? crazy!) and that’s why your having problems.
But don’t listen to me, I’m an over thinker. Also, some cops are just nice cops and aren’t worried about little stuff like that.
Just run with the idea that you and the vet don’t agree on the proper course of treatment for this problem. You like the vet otherwise, but the next time you have a dog with this problem, switch to a different one.
Enough with the “handing out valium” already. Two of my closest friends on earth call me first after they find their brother/husband (who is also MY friend since we were children) dead of suicide and in a panic to be helpful (and because his sister asked) I grab the only tranquilizers available. Hardly “handing out valium” which sounds like I have a bowlful of drugs ready for the neighborhood kids on Halloween.
If it were really a problem of any kind, in any universe, I wouldn’t have had the valium at that point because of course I would have long before taken it or “handed it out”. Instead it was in a dresser drawer where it had been since long before my dog died, never touched, barely remembered.
So I just looked it up for the first time. According to the DEA, valium,is a schedule IV drug. Infuriatingly, so is phenobarbital, but she had zero issues with that.
Going after a vet about being overly cautious in prescribing controlled drugs when your prior actions are providing a near textbook example of the irresponsible behavior that causes such caution is beyond irony.
Yes, absolutely textbook to nearly forget about altogether.
Shockingly irresponsible to remember it when her friends ask for something to help them face the worst day of their lives.
Clearly only a menace would do such things.
It doesn’t matter if you gave it to Jesus on the Cross, as far as the vet is concerned. It’s a controlled drug, she hands it out to someone who has decided she’s qualified to dispense it to other people if she sees fit, she’s the one answering questions at the police station. Seriously, can you not draw a line between your actions and the vet’s refusal? If you treat controlled drugs that she’s prescribed for a very specific use such an offhand manner because you think you’re entitled to do so, you don’t get given more. The vet is the one who stands to lose her licence to practice, not you.
First I want to say I’m sorry about the loss of your dog. We lost a dog two years ago and it still hurts.
As for science stuff. . .
There may be a problem with dispensing filled plastic syringes of diazepam, because that is not how the drug is intended to be used. Nowhere on the label does it mention inserting the product rectally. The more common seizure control technique involves using a diazepam gel that is designed for rectal administration. Alternatively, compounding pharmacists produce diazepam suppositories.
Now both of these options cost more than the injectable product, but if there were a problem (someone steals the drug from you or a child gets possession of it) the prescriber would be in a safer position with the DEA.
Stoid, quit bitching about the vet doing her job. Just because you live in your own world in which you think it is OK for you to give away your pet’s restricted medications to people does not mean that your vet also lives in your private universe.
And don’t even start to think that you should self-rep sue her.
ah but she has expertise here. I am sure it would be an interesting saga.
Scheduling drugs has nothing to do with preventing them from being handed out in emergencies. It’s to prevent abuse. And taking a single pill is not abuse. Valium is not addictive at a single dose. Valium is the least addictive benzodiazepine.
If this vet did this out of some misguided attempt to prevent addiction–something she is not legally required to do–then she is a bad vet. Stoid is right: it’s just as controlled as phenobarbital. Phenobarbital is actually the more addictive drug. There’s a reason why it’s use in humans is supposed to be limited to be 2 weeks while Valium is limited to 4 weeks. Benzodiazepines were largely invented as a less addictive alternative to barbiturates.
But how dare she be angry at the vet whose actions resulted in the death of her beloved pet, right? Gotta get in those shows of contempt for the grieving. Gotta find a way to blame her.
You do have a special talent.
Oh BigT, you’ve done it again.
Your post is pure gibberish. Gathering up and repurposing unused controlled psychoactive drugs prescribed for your dog and giving them to a buddy under stress who you think needs them is a prescribing doctors worst nightmare and is abuse of the drug.