Dear Jude friends,

Oh, what a month it has been! Our little Jude had some really bad days this month, and I was very worried about her for a while. It started with small cluster seizures and quickly escalated to huge grand mal seizures.

I was watching Jude one day, and her paw was very slightly twitching. I’ve come to know Jude’s episodes very well and knew something was brewing. The twitching became small seizures, and the small seizures became big seizures. Luckily I was ready with the rescue medicine and quickly stopped the seizure from continuing. This was happening later in the evening (of course), but I called our vet team anyway. Dr. Collins told me to give Jude an extra dose of her anti-seizure medication, and we added in 2 new medications, one to take down any pressure in her brain, and one that helps with seizure activity.

That was a long night. I slept (kind of) on the couch next to Jude’s playpen all night, so I would know right away if she started to have a seizure. She did ok through the night but was very quiet the next day. I slept by her playpen the following night too. Although the seizures had stopped, my little girl was not herself. She was quiet and being very loving and sweet. Not my Jude! My Jude is feisty and ready to take the world by storm! While I loved that she was being sweet and cuddly, I wanted my feisty girl back.

Jude went to see her neurologist, to see if there was anything else we could do. He kept her overnight so they could do an MRI of her brain. Jude’s neurologist is in love with Jude, he thinks she’s absolutely perfect, and he’s right.

I couldn’t wait to have my Jude back, I really missed her the night she stayed at the hospital, and I was worried about her. She came home the next day and was already starting to feel better and act more like herself. Now we just had to wait for the MRI results.

The next day we got the results, and it was a very pleasant surprise. Jude’s brain had actually improved quite a lot since her MRI when she was 8 weeks old. As she has grown, things in her brain have grown and improved. I was so happy! Her neurologist said the seizures are going to happen; all we can do is try to manage them with medications. He said she is a long way from needing a shunt placed, and that would only be if we had no other options, in a life or death situation. The neurologist said we were doing all the right things with the medications we have her on, and to continue with those.

Jude is now completely back to normal, and feisty as ever, and I couldn’t be happier. I love my Jude, my feisty, opinionated Jude.

Jude sometimes uses the litterbox on her own, but lately, I have been expressing her bladder in a morning before she comes out of her playpen. She does not like that! But if I don’t express her she tends to hold her bladder too long, and it gets very large. So now she has to tolerate me expressing her, which is very quick, and then I know she isn’t holding her urine too long. Holding onto her urine like that could cause urinary tract infections, which is not what she needs with everything else she has going on.

The other day Jude made her way out onto the screen porch all on her own. I was very proud of her because that takes a bit of navigating…. across the bedroom, around the couch, through the middle of the screen door (it had magnets in the middle that open when pushed on and close behind you), and out onto the screen porch. Not bad for a blind girl. She loves smelling the fresh air out there, and really likes to lay in a sunbeam.

That’s all the Jude news for now. Let’s hope next month I can write we have had a seizure-free month.

Thank you all for your support of Jude. We literally couldn’t do this without. I’m sure you can imagine how big her bill was for an MRI, neurologist visit and overnight stay. You are helping us save this girl each and every day. Thank you!

Your correspondent,
Karina