Sixteen pills

Full disclosure, sixteen pills wasn't my first choice for the title of this post. I was going to call it Carpé Canine. In case you’re not a fan of The Dead Poets Society, let me translate for you: sieze the dog.

Alright, penalty for reaching but this is a story about my German Shepherd Ace, who, if you follow me here or on any other social platform I ramble on, you know I post quite a bit about him be it words or pictures. But here’s something I don’t talk about very often—Ace’s sweet sixteen.

That’s not his age, although we’d be beyond happy if he makes it to sixteen. In this case, it’s the number of pills we have to give him every day.

Come to find out Ace has epilepsy. We didn’t know it when we got him from Westside German Shepherd Rescue six years ago. In fact, for the first three years he lived with us he was perfectly fine.

Then came that night.

It was about three-thirty in the morning, and the wife and I heard a loud thump in the living room, like a sack of potatoes hitting floor. We came running out of the bedroom to find Ace, where he’d fallen off the couch on to the floor, in a full grand mal seizure.

Even though I’d never seen a dog have a seizure of any kind, it was pretty clear what was happening.

He was foaming at the mouth, which was involuntarily and uncontrollably snapping open and closed. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and his body thought it was riding a bicycle, impossibly contorted with all four legs snapping in quick, jerky movements.

It felt like forever, but it ended after about three minutes. When he came out of it, he was definitely altered for about three hours after, going in and out of the house to the backyard over and over.

The wife and I didn’t know what to do. Every time he went out, he stumbled around the back of the house to the furthest point away from the back door. We thought he was looking for a place to die. Finally he came back and settled down a bit.

We took him to the vet later that morning, and he put Ace on a low dosage of phenobarbitol that would hopefully slow down his seizures.

To make a long story short—if that’s even possible at this point—he continues to have seizures to this day. After several, expensive neurological tests, various veterinary specialist visits and more seizures, he now has a sixteen-a-day pill regimen (the eight in the photo twice a day) consisting of phenobarbitol, zonisomide and keppra which keeps his siezures few and far between.

And when they do happen, they don’t last more than a couple minutes, and he comes back to himself quickly.

A few people, obviously not dog people, have suggested getting rid of him or putting him out of his misery. But he's not in any misery. When they happen, he's not aware of it and, providing it doesn't happen near something he can hurt himself on, they're not hurting him. Dogs with epilepsy can live full, normal lives with the right meds and lots of love—both of which Ace has.

Is his monthly medication expensive? Yes. Can you put a price on the unconditional love he gives and gets? No.

To those who say they couldn't do it, we offer this quote from Seabiscuit's trainer in the movie of the same name: "You know, you don't throw a whole life away just 'cause he's banged up a little."

Who's a good boy?