GRACIE’S SEIZURES
I took my girls, Gracie and Lucie, for a walk one afternoon, and when we came back, I heard a noise while I was checking email. I looked up to see Gracie flat as a board, shaking on top of her food bowls. Panicked, I ran to her, not really knowing what to do. Briefly the seizing quit, so I reached to pick her up. My finger had barely touched her, when she started to shake again. I had adopted the girls a year earlier and I remember looking down at her thinking; “Really? This is how it’s going to end with Gracie and me? She’s dying from a seizure right in front of me without being sick a day since I’ve had her?”
I grabbed Gracie and put her in the car on the passenger seat. She was shaking, and still stiff, so I arranged her best as I could. I got in, and turned the air-conditioning on full blast, heading to the emergency animal hospital.
A few minutes after I got on the road, Gracie rallied and sat up panting heavily. I turned both of the air conditioner vents on her, thankful to have her back with me, but still worried at how hard she was breathing. I drove as fast as I could toward the hospital. Right as I pulled into the parking lot, Gracie seized again. She shook violently, and one of her paws struck the gear-shifter and knocked the car into neutral. In my state of worry and confusion, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was wrong with the car and why I couldn’t pull into the parking space. Finally I put the car back in gear.
I grabbed Gracie and ran into the hospital. The Veterinarian and the techs assessed the situation quickly, and let me carry her into an examination room immediately. They made me wait outside while they worked on her. They gave Gracie Valium in an IV drip and who knows what else. Afterwards, the vet came out to talk to me.
Because we had just walked off leash prior to the episode, I didn’t know if Gracie got into anything that might have caused the seizure. From what I was receiving from the angels, I concluded that seemed likely. I could not get confirmation to determine whether Gracie had epilepsy. If she did, would it show up as a life ending seizure the very first time it manifested? Yet quite frighteningly she had quit breathing three times before we had reached the hospital.
Gracie spent two overnights plus another day in the hospital. At home, Lucie allowed the cats to run roughshod over her and sunk into the background like wallpaper. Gracie had another seizure in the hospital. Then the drugs kicked in. The vet’s technicians told me how Gracie was whining hoping to get out of her cage.
When she came home, Gracie was so drugged that she walked into walls. I still did not sense that she had epilepsy. So I was hesitant to put her on a lifetime of medication and consign her to a dull existence. This was Gracie, my girl who loved to have her head out of the car window, to stand on her hind legs, to swirl and smile. It broke my heart.
I researched seizures on line and consulted with the guides. What came to me was that I had asked Gracie to watch over Lucie when they were in the back yard at night, telling her that the blame would be squarely on her shoulders if the coyotes made off with Lucie.
Lucie had a crush on coyotes, and during a full moon would stand in the back yard barking at them, which would have been okay if coyotes couldn’t jump the surrounding six foot tall brick fence and grab her. She had been grabbed twice already; there was a strong likelihood that she could be killed if it happened again. After Patsy’s recent death, a gruesome grizzly death in the jaws of a coyote for Lucie was not something I could bear.
The elementals brought up that Gracie was just a dog, and the responsibility for her sister was too much. It was not fair of me to saddle Gracie with such a demanding responsibility. That fact had crossed my mind before too, so I understood what they were saying and removed that responsibility from Gracie and apologized for putting too much weight squarely on her generally competent shoulders. Not one to ignore the scientific side of a situation, I also looked into the many reasons that seizures happen in dogs. None of them felt like they fit.
I begrudgingly kept Gracie on the Phenobarbital she came home on, while also looking for other healing solutions. When she first came home, I started her on half the dose of Phenobarbital that was prescribed. I also had a cranial-sacral massage therapist work on her once a week, and I surrounded her with healing angels and elementals.
Most people would not have tried to take a dog off of Phenobarbital once the dog had seizures that were so significant respiration ceased. In fact, my Gracie’s best dog friend Gizmo was on seizure medication. His humans had never seen Gizmo have an event, just the evidence of one. The risk was Gizmo could have a seizure while they were not present. A seizure could cause death, or wrack up a gigantic hospital bill like Gracie had.
My dog sitters would not care for Gracie unless she was on Phenobarbital. They did not want the responsibility if Gracie had another seizure, and I understood completely.
When I was in Denver for a conference, I talked to a woman who was an animal medical empath. She told me that there was extra pressure on Gracie, which caused her seizures, and that she was a really good dog who was trying to do what I wanted. This woman felt that the damage that caused the seizures had been repaired, primarily by the cranial-sacral work. She saw Gracie totally recovering. I didn’t mention anything about medication.
The next morning right before the conference started, the same woman walked up to me, and pulled me aside. She told me, “last night I had a dream, in which a message came through from Gracie and her guides. She wants off the medication. She doesn’t feel good on it. It is poison you know, right?”
I was happy to hear this. I too, received a message to take Gracie off the Phenobarbital, I even asked my vet about it. But she recommended against it, and seemed to think I was crazy to consider it. “Would you really want to take a chance on your dog having another event and maybe this time it goes on long enough that she could die?” She paused, and then added, “If you are determined to lower her medication, you need to do it a little bit at a time. Be around her constantly then for at least two weeks to make sure she doesn’t have a problem.
The Empath that shared her dream of Gracie’s message did our family a great service. She strengthened my resolve about stopping the medication, just by telling me the truth about situation. When I came home from Denver, I shoved the bottle of Phenobarbital way back inside a kitchen drawer. Gracie stopped it cold turkey. That was well over three years ago, and Gracie has never had another seizure.
Gracie once again hangs her head out the car window when I drive. She springs to action after a toy; she is my sweet baby of joy. I have her back, which is not only what I wanted for myself but also desperately wanted for Gracie as well.

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