Cavalcade of Side-Effects – Recovery from Vaccine-Induced Meningoencephalomyelitis

For the last 24 hours, Lilly has dramatic tummy troubles every 2-3 hours like clockwork. The diarrhea came on quickly Tuesday (2/7) afternoon and got worse overnight, despite the piles of rice I fed her to bulk things up. Our veterinary specialty hospital discharge instructions warned us this might happen as a side-effect from (primarily) the steroids Lilly is taking, but also as a consequence of the immune-mediator drug Lilly needs.

It is NOT a sign of her primary disease, but instead … just an icky outcome from the now 7 medications Lilly now takes as part of her recovery from meningoencephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and lining of the brain and spinal cord) after having an adverse rabies vaccine reaction.

Right now (5:00 pm Wednesday 2/8), we’re waiting for Tom to come up with Lilly’s new tummy medicine that we hope will resolve the tummy troubles quickly. I’ve also just cooked and rinsed thoroughly some plain hamburger for her dinner. Our family veterinarian called in the prescription for me this afternoon, after I got worried that I had NOT heard back from our neuro team (following 2 calls … one Tuesday afternoon, one Wednesday morning).

She gave me her cell phone number when Lilly was hospitalized last week, and she said to call if I needed anything, especially if I had requested but not (yet) received input from the neuro team.

I waited as long as my Dog Mom guts could take (24 hours from first call, 7 hours from second), and I called our family veterinarian around 3:15 pm, asking for help.

So, today wasn’t a big progress day in the Land of the Lilly. We have mostly been working to:

  • Keep Lilly from soiling herself
  • Keep Lilly hydrated since dehydration raises the chance of a seizure
  • See if Lilly can relax enough to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time

Lilly actually did sleep a bit better Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, only needing help every 2-2 1/2 hours, rather than every 30-60 minutes.

So, that’s something, but she has been pretty antsy all day. That might improve in the coming days as Lilly’s steroid dose gets cut in 1/2.

Also, despite her tummy troubles, look what Lilly brought into my office this morning!

best dog blog, champion of my heart, border collie with plush dog toy

I posed her while she napped, but it’s still kind of sweet. She slept like this for a while.

You’ll notice that Lilly is wearing her ThunderShirt. It’s mostly to keep her warm, but our sweet, fearful heroine had to go COLD TURKEY off of her behavioral medicines. So, I figured why not.

If she needs the harness from the Canine Equipment Ultimate Trail Pack (that she also didn’t like much when we tested it), then perhaps she can get some help from her ThunderShirt too … even though early tests showed she didn’t like it much.

best dog blog, champion of my heart, border collie with plush dog toy

The new monkey toy (organic) came as part of our discharge prize package from Lilly’s week-long stay in the veterinary specialty hospital.

best dog blog, champion of my heart, veterinary schwag bag

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Quick note … I’ve created a new blog post category called “Adverse Vaccine Reaction – Recovery from Meningoencephalomyelitis.” You can find it in the pull-down menu in the sidebar, if you ever want to look at all the posts about this beyond-unfortunate medical emergency with Lilly or to catch up on how far we’ve come.

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Everyone say THANKS to my sister!
(She sometimes has time to read the blog.)

I also just got word from my sister (who has been doing her eldercare parts and MINE while Lilly has been sick) that they are taking my mom to the hospital tonight for tests. Seriously. If you could please cast other mojo net upon all of us, that’d be super.

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