Breaking (Bad) News: New, Dangerous Symptoms a Year After Adverse Rabies Vaccine Reaction

Friday morning (1/25/13) around 6:45 am, Lilly had her first seizure in about a year. Then, we found an absurd amount of blood in her urine, and our veterinary team found AIR inside the walls of Lilly’s bladder. That’s. NOT. Good. Potentially life-threatening, even.

All week long, Lilly has been a major tinkle monster. Huge deluges of pee would come rushing out, often making noises like a burst water balloon. Some of her incontinence days are worse than others, so we weren’t too concerned.

This morning, however, when I took her outside to pee first thing after waking up, Lilly stumbled a few steps — like 3 stooges / drunken sailor. She slipped and fell in the snow. I’d done the same thing Monday, bruising the heck out of my hip and tweaking my wrist and shoulder.

I spun around to tell her she was a silly girl and to help her up, but she couldn’t get up, and when I tried to help her, she went completely limp and didn’t budge.

Since I’d just woken up, it honestly seemed to me like she had dropped dead.

She tipped her head a bit back. Her feet twitched a little. Her eyes stayed open, but she was unresponsive.

I let Ginko back inside, and I SCREAMED for Tom.

By the time he got outside, Lilly was starting to come around. We brought her in, and she cuddled with Tom on the sofa under a blanket.

I didn’t want to feed her until I knew another seizure wasn’t coming. In the past, the seizures she had at the hospital came in clusters. I never saw any of those, so this was the first seizure I’d witnessed myself, and I was shaken.

After about 30 minutes, she seemed tired but OK, so I went ahead and fed her. I also called our neurologist’s team to alert them to the seizure and to seek guidance … since Lilly is supposed to have “chemo” injections again this weekend.

When I took her out to pee a while later, I realized that her urine was completely RED, and it made the weird air-whooshing sound again coming out.

I called the neurology team again to share the bloody urine news.

I also called our regular veterinarian to let her know what was going on. She wanted to see Lilly PRONTO, so Tom ran Lilly down to the hospital … because I had one work deadline this morning that I could NOT miss.

X-rays showed right away the air in her bladder.

We were also supposed to go to Lilly’s first acupuncture / physical therapy consult today at noon, but we had to cancel that, after getting the news of AIR in Lilly’s bladder wall.

**

X-rays show a number of strange things about Lilly’s bladder, including air inside the bladder and inside the bladder wall. Our veterinarian doesn’t want to draw out any urine for testing until that extraction can be aided by the use of ultrasound.

Thankfully, the ultrasound specialist is scheduled to be there this afternoon (between 2-4 pm our time), so we’ll get some better diagnostic images and other tests done at that point.

Then, our main veterinarian and our neurologist will consult and call me.

I’m trying very hard NOT to freak out, but here is what we know or suspect:

  • Lilly had her first seizure in about a year. It was mild.
  • Lilly has blood in her urine.
  • Lilly has air in her bladder and bladder wall.
  • That air is probably caused by an infection or fungus that’s producing gas inside her bladder / bladder wall. I’ve read a couple of case studies, and it’s considered potentially life-threatening.
  • Her bladder troubles are likely a result of the ongoing “chemo” / cytarabine injections, which are VERY hard on the lining of the bladder.
  • We will likely not only cancel chemo for the weekend, but discontinue it altogether.
  • How that will affect Lilly’s prognosis going forward is unknown.

I’m sad and scared. For now, I’m cleaning house to keep myself busy while waiting for news. It’s a fallback coping strategy.

Even when the world feels out of control, you can control how clean your floors are and such.

Please keep us in your hearts. I fear that our timeline just got much shorter.