(Continued from page 5)
her head in the
shower, looking intently at
me. It was very unnerving. At
times she was so obnoxious
I would lock her outside and
she would stand by the door
and bark till I let her in. I
could not figure out what
was going on with her need
to be my constant shadow.
Now that I was done with all
the pain medication and
muscle relaxers I realized
that my bouts of memory
loss and missing periods of
time were not related to the
effects of medications. My sudden and extreme fatigue was not the relaxing effects of
medication. I followed up with my doctor and told him that there were occasions when I
would loose periods of time and I would be over come by extreme tiredness. I was sent
to a neurologist and under went a series of tests including MRIs and EEGs. I was then
diagnosed with complex partial seizures. After months of wondering what was wrong
with me I finally had an answer. The long process of trial and error to find the proper
medication to control the seizures began.
Panda continued to have days when her behavior was odd. While most Australian Cattle
Dogs tend to be “Velcro” dogs Panda was always very independent. One day I was talk-
ing to my friend Kim who is also an ACD owner and she suggested that perhaps Panda
was trying to tell me when I was going to have a seizure. I’d never heard of such a thing
but Kim told me that some dogs have the ability to sense an impending seizure. Kim
suggested I keep a journal and document all of Panda’s weird behaviors and my sei-
zures. For three months I wrote down all of Panda’s strange new behaviors and kept
track of my seizures. Low and behold they coincided. Panda was dead on 100% of the
time. Kim helped me research about service dogs and the law so that I could start tak-
ing Panda with me all the time.
By this time I was on my fifth anti seizure drug and my seizures were still uncontrolled.
I’d had allergic reactions to a couple of the drugs and others had no effect at all. How-
ever now I had Panda with me. I could venture out into public and not fear being caught
in a store and having a seizure. My life started to resume to some kind of normalcy. If I
(Continued on page 7)
SPOTLIGHT on Dogs with Jobs
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