First things first, this is not a picture from today, nor even one taken here at Cadbury Cottage. This photo was taken almost exactly eight years ago when we still lived in Oxfordshire and is of Rabbit, our eldest dog, then a mere five and a half years old. The thing is Rabbit gave us a bit of a scare today, the second one in as many weeks (the first being a case of Pyrexia – a fever – when he was running a temperature of over 40 and had a heart rate of 140!!). Today was a little more serious though.
We were awoken at around 7am to a crashing sound and on going downstairs found Rabbit on a mat in the kitchen having obviously 'crawled' his way from his bed in the study (having knocked over the fire extinguisher en route). There was a wee on the mat which was soon followed by a bowel evacuation. His head was constantly twitching, his eyes could not focus on us and he was salivating. Everything we saw said 'stroke' and as we dialled the number for the vet, we honestly thought this was Rabbit's last day!
Over the phone the vet asked if Rabbit's eyes were flicking back and forth. At that time his head was moving so much we could not tell. When we arrived at the vets, 'Alan' came over to our car, took one look at Rabbit's eyes (which we could see were indeed flicking back and forth), uttered the word 'excellent' and then rushed inside to open up. The word 'excellent was not quite what we had expected to hear and we both felt a mixture of horror and hope!!!
It turned out that Rabbit had not had a stroke but was suffering from 'idiopathic vestibular syndrome' and whilst not a 'definite', it was more than likely that he was going to make a full recovery! Sure enough, having left him at the vets we then had a call four hours later to say he was up, had been outside for a walk and had eaten a whole tin of dog food. We should add at this point that in the words of the vet, a recovery this quick was 'remarkable', usually dogs take days, if not weeks to get back to normal!!!
Idiopathic vestibular syndrome is apparently very common but its causes are totally unknown. The 'vestibular' system is made up of parts of the brain and ear and is responsible for maintaining our sense of balance. When something goes wrong with the vestibular system, it feels like the world is spinning, hence being unable to stand, having a tilting head, feeling sick etc. Alan likened it to being on a very, very rocky boat at sea where everything and anything was moving all at once.
So, tears of dread and grief became tears of joy and amazement as Rabbit once again pulled through from a serious illness (lung cancer in 2015 as well as the recent pyrexia).
The prognosis for the future is as it was before this happened: he may have another bout of this syndrome, he may not. He is an old dog and his lung cancer has almost definitely come back (he coughs and gags a lot) and he is now a bit wobbly on his back end due to old-age arthritis BUT he seems to want to keep going for a while longer yet.. and thank goodness for that!!!