Catching Up - Part III

In November 2015, Jake and Piper and I moved to The Treehouse and began adjusting to and LOVING mountain life.  We got to know the neighbors, began discovering the plethora of hiking trails nearby, and experienced our first snow here.  It was glorious to finally be living again where there are seasons!

Sadly, this was also the time that our lives would take an unexpected, awful turn.  

My beloved Jake began having seizures.  Just completely out of the blue - terrifying, violent seizures.  Any animal in the throes of a seizure is awful to watch.  But a 110-pound Rottweiler having seizures in a small space is horrific.  The potential for him to severely injure himself is very real and very frightening.  

Now it was Jake's turn for diagnostic imaging.

We had all the testing done - MRI, labs, and evaluation by a canine neurologist - but there was no discernible reason for the sudden onset seizures.  No brain tumor, no blood or organ issues.  Nothing.  The vet diagnosed him with idiopathic epilepsy and we began a twice-daily regimen of phenobarbital.

And we put one paw in front of the other and kept moving forward.