News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

I’ve posted before about Apollo having occasional seizures. These are full-blown grand mal seizures, lasting a minute or so, then taking 5 – 10 minutes to fully recover.

The vet diagnosed epilepsy, not uncommon for huskies. He averaged maybe one seizure every two or three months, and the vet said as long as they don’t happen more often than once a month, nothing needed to be done. Just live with them.

It went on this way for about 3 years. Then about two months ago, he had a normal seizure. A month later another one. A week later, again. Then 20 hours later. Then 3 hours later. We didn’t like this trend at all, so we took him to the pet emergency room, where he spent the night under observation. No more seizures that night, but they said it is time to start treating him.

After a visit to the Veterinary Neurological Institute (which fortunately happens to have one of their two national centers about 10 miles from our house), he has started taking twice daily doses of phenobarbital. I knew phenobarbitol was a depressant, but looking it up on Wikipedia I see that its main use now is as the “first line treatment” for seizures, in both humans and canines.

Unfortunately, it has side effects. The first week or so it made him hyper (which the vet said to expect). He stayed up all night whining and yipping, and broke out of the kitchen and woke us up by jumping up on our bed one morning. Then he transitioned into a sedated state, spending most of the day lying on the floor. When he tried to stand his legs sometimes slid out from under him and he walked very slowly.

After two weeks he is starting to get used to it, and is a lot more normal the past couple of days. He seems to have regained a passion for playing fetch with his ball, dropping it at our feet multiple times a day, saying “Let’s go out back and you throw the ball for me!”.

Unfortunately, the vet said that he is due for an increase in dose. I hesitate to put him back in that groggy state again, after seeing the old Apollo showing up, but I guess we should follow medical advice. We’ll probably wait another day or two.

So far no seizures since that bad day. Let’s hope it stays that way — if he starts to seize again, we will have to increase the dose, or even put him on other drugs with worse side effects.

Devon is part of a big ad campaign for “Peacock Cookies” in Taiwan right now. Here’s his face on the side of a bus:

And here’s an ad. This first shows a Flash application. You can click the various links at the bottom (all in Chinese) and see a couple of scenes showing Devon, but the most interesting is the link labeled “TVCF” on the lower right. That will run the two TV commercials, one after another (repeating infinitely).

The commercial is for a kind of cookie. The guy in the suit represents the “cool mint” flavor. He’s supposed to be “cool”. Devon represents the “warm” flavor. The girl tries to decide between the guys/cookies.

Devon said the ads are running frequently on Taiwan television, several times an evening.

Crazy, huh?

The surgeon today released me to play basketball.

He said I can do pretty much whatever I want, but to not push too hard for another couple of months. I don’t need to go back and see him, and my official physical therapy is over, though I will continue the exercises at home.

He said I am 3-4 months ahead of schedule as far as flexibility and strength, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the healing is also ahead of schedule, so I will be easy on it.

It’s been a long 19 weeks. I hope I still remember how to play!

We had a huge, gigantic dust storm (or “Haboob” in Arabic) hit the Phoenix area last night. TV stations reported that it was 7000 feet high, and 50 miles wide. It came into the city like a huge wall, almost a tsunami of dust. One minute the sun was shining, and the next it was night with visibility less than 100 feet. Dust storms are common — we usually get a few each summer, but this was the largest I ever remember seeing.

Old-timers say that the summer thunderstorms start after 3 dust storms. I think this one might count as 3 all by itself!

I saw the surgeon last week, and he continues to be pleased with my progress, as do the physical therapists. I have full range of motion, so physical therapy is now focused on strengthening the shoulder muscles. Full strength will take about a full year, but I should be at 80% by 6 months (from date of surgery).

I can do almost anything I want that doesn’t put strain on the shoulder. No heavy lifting, no falling on that side. The best part is that the surgeon cleared me to shoot baskets, though only from close range. No 3-pointers for a while. So every evening I am out back with a basketball, trying to regain my form.

Still 2 or 3 months before I can play in a real game.

As I posted previously, we got home from Taiwan yesterday. Unfortunately we both picked up colds a few days before we came back, and so the flight, normally boring and tiring, was downright uncomfortable.

For me it’s just a cold, but Gisele got sicker and sicker, until today she went to see the doctor. He was concerned that the bronchitis might be pneumonia, so he arranged for her to get rush xrays. Meanwhile he put her on super-antibiotics that will treat pneumonia or anything else likely taking up residence in her lungs.

Otherwise, the trip to Taiwan was great. I wish I could have stayed longer; maybe next time.

Devon is having the time of his life over there, hobnobbing with movie stars, singers and models. He still doesn’t have a full-time girlfriend, but that may change in the near future; these things are always hard to predict.

Meanwhile, Derek has begun summer classes at ASU. He continues to focus on math with advanced calculus and analysis classes, though he still isn’t sure that’s where he will end up.

We got home this afternoon, about 25 hours after we left our hotel in Taipei.

Tired.

But it was an uneventful trip, and everything seems fine here at home, including Apollo (thanks Donna, Kelley and Alex!).

More on the trip after a day or two of rest.