So Tired....

I am having the worst week. And it's all because of stress and sleep deprivation. I was a lucky mom who had a baby that slept through the night at a month old. Midnight to 6am, and eventually longer and longer until we got from 8am - 8pm. I got lots of rest and felt good. But it's the dog that keeps us up all hours of the night. Eliot paces and paces before having seizures, and then it's not just one seizure lately, it's many. So yesterday, after pacing the whole night before and having to listen to his nails click on our wood floors, Eliot had two seizures. One seizure was at 1:30pm and another at 5:30pm. I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that his seizures just put me over the edge. Then, to make things worse, Mady burned her fingers on her left hand on the oven door. I was trying to make a nice dinner for me and Steve and she came crawling around the counter and stuck her fingers between the oven door and the pull-out drawer below and burned herself. She screamed and cried and I called Telehealth... She now has some nice blisters and redness. I felt like such a bad mother because I should have been watching her more carefully. But lack of sleep and worry over my dog got in the way. Anyway, Steve got home at about 6:30pm and gave Eliot his emergency dose of Diazepam. Then Eliot was good for the whole evening and even went to bed pretty well. But this morning at about 4am, he started with the pacing and the jumping onto and off of the bed... and had a seizure again at 5:30am. Other than the thrashing and obvious physical trauma he suffers when he's having a seizure, the worst part for me is the smell that lingers afterwards. When Eliot is in the middle of a seizure, he foams at the mouth - that foam stinks. It has a smell that is different than normal doggie breath. It's a sick smell. And that smell attaches itself to fabric and is really hard to remove. Eliot's morning seizure took place in our bed, so I'm faced with the task of washing the bedclothes today. I have to try to get a king-size feather duvet into the washing machine. I hope it fits because I am in no mental condition to go to a laundromat. And I think that foam tastes bad too because he drinks tons of water after seizures. Then he inevitably pees on the carpet because he can't hold it until we put him out. Just now I came downstairs after feeding Mady her morning bottle and there was a spot on the floor... I am sick of this.

I am so tired today. I am physically exhausted and mentally exhausted. It's not fun to wake up at 5:30am, worried about your sick dog, and then not be able to get back to sleep. I got Mady up at 7:15am and brought her downstairs because she heard movement outside her door and Eliot's claws on the floor. I sat on the couch and had a bit of a cry. Now Steve is at work thinking that I'm not strong enough to handle this situation, that I'm depressed, and he's already called me once today to check on things. I am upset because I keep thinking about putting Eliot to sleep when he has days like these. It's no life for him to be having clusters of seizures every month. And the "aura" of the seizure - the time that the body is gearing up for one - can last for a week or more. So Eliot is in the "aura" stage for a week or so, then has his seizures over the course of a few days, and then recovers for a week or more. So Eliot really only has one week where he's a normal beagle. Is that a life? Am I being selfish because I want to sleep through the night, which I haven't been able to do since 2005 when we first got Eliot? Is it wrong that I don't want any more $1000 vet bills or $50/month in epilepsy medication? Is it wrong that I'm sick of cleaning up Eliot's messes? I hope he doesn't have any more seizures today and that he's reset himself for this month. I can't go to Vegas on Saturday if Eliot is in bad shape. Nobody wants to look after him because they're afraid he'll have seizures and frankly he's too much work. So we have to put him in a kennel for 5 days. I am already worried that he'll have seizures due to the stress of being caged up, but there's not much I can do about it. The kennel is awesome and he's done well there in the past. It's just that now his epilepsy is more severe and he's on more medication and I'm just worried that he'll have seizures when they're not around to notice and that he won't get the care he needs. How can I be excited for my trip when I'm so worried about my dog? I'm not even too fussed about leaving Mady behind... isn't that terrible? I feel horrible today. I would nap, but I have to wash my damned sheets and they're the only king-size set we have. Life...