Old Girl

Tuesday, November 8th 2016 – 11:52 am

She’s still barking now, an hour later. She cannot help herself and we do not yell at her. Not today.

For a while, she could not stand up or even recognize me. She leaned her puke covered cheek against the hallway wall for balance and stared a thousand miles away, deaf to her own name. Deaf to every name and word I said.

I felt bad when I had to leave her mid-seizure in the hall to get paper towels for all the piling, slimy foam. The dirty green carpet will be ripped up soon anyway, for the much more cane and walker friendly hard laminate. And epileptic seizure foam friendly, if Chloe is still with us.

I never saw it as bad as this morning. She ran out of the room and slammed into the wall in the hallway, looking upward and barking at her invisible, flying attackers. I tried my best to get up quickly, but it is a bad morning for me too. I am unsteady and nauseous. Amy reminds me I went to bed much earlier last night and did not stay up as late smoking, which always helps. It helps far greater than my prescription epilepsy medicine. With the daily pill reminder on the nightstand, I am far more faithful at remembering my pills than even the cannabis and yet only the latter visibly improves my condition. But regardless, I did not have enough last night.

When I tried to stand up to help her, I almost fell immediately off the couch. I forgot that last good week be damned, today was a really bad day and I moved far too quickly than I should have without my cane. I wobbled uneasily to her and she had already fallen over in the hall. I collapsed next to her and held her while her face grimaced so tight, bearing every fang, you would have sworn the corners of her lips were about to rip. She seized, flailed and foamed in my arms. For over a minute. An hour ago. It was her first seizure, that we know about at least, for many months.

As I held her, I kept repeating to her it was okay and she would be alright. I ran  to our default human sanctuary of the perpetually helpless and clueless, which is liberally doling out the nearest comforting lies to self, God and reason.

Amy got home shortly afterward and took her turn at cradling Chloe’s addled head in her hands. We finally figured that we had been so overwhelmed lately, we missed her epilepsy medicine for more than one day.

She will still bark at things not even there for another few hours at least. We’ll keep a closer eye on her and baby her more for today and tomorrow.

My hands and legs are shaking and convulsing less than when I first sat down to type this an hour ago. My medicine is kicking in.

Chloe still is confused and cannot see very well. She has stopped shaking. I almost have.

She is still barking at nothing and nobody in particular. Yelling to anyone who cares enough to listen.

…