Donna ~ How is Derrick today, did he make it thru the night okay and is Doby still with him?

Wow, that is an amazing story about Doby hitting the button and when the phone call came in from emergency he knew to bark. He is one special dog. Was he trained to do all this?

Wondering how he knows your walking is off, is this another sensory thing with Doby?

Is Doby a Special Needs Dog? How did you acquire Doby?

With all the wonderful things you have done for others you are now blessed by Doby.

Hugs,

Blue

Mari,
Doby is an chiwennie half chihuahua half dachund dog. He is about
3 years old I believe may be 4.

Donna

Blue

We have never really searched for a alert dog. The first two were puppies.
We didn't even know Derrick had seizures.

Now when I was looking for a dog for him after Yapper, I did ask for a calm kind of Lapdog, and the lady said she thought maybe Wendy would be one to sit with him after seizures. She was right.

Then Doby, I found him in a facebook post. He sounded just like what Derrick needed after putting Wendy down and I answered the add. And it was love at first site. The lady told me he knew some commands, and she thought he might be able to be trained. But we did some obdience not a lot.

And he just kind of seems to know. Like a dogs sense. So its kind of nice.
He is a really good dog, and he did spend most of the night with Derrick
in the recliner till Derrick put him down last night, and then he came and slept in the bed with me, about 5 am this morning. But he has been with Derrick this morning again.

He is an amazing little guy for sure.

Donna

Blue

I believe the numbness could easily be during a seizure or after.
Derrick has what is called Todd's paralysis, it for him is a complete
paralysis of the right I believe it is side. It doesn't happen much
anymore, thanks to the magnet and vns. But it used to happen
and I had to get him home, so I didn't have to worry about whether
I could get him into the house. If he was still numb he would crawl
places in the house. It could last days. I found out what it was
from one of my co-workers who had read about it.

But he would go down and then would know it was coming. One season
of baseball, he went down every game he played. It was the most
amazing thing. His teammates knew the only way the coaches and
I were allowed to be on the field to help him, were if the ball was dead.
So once he went down. No matter were the ball was they wouldn't
touch it. So the umpire would allow the coaches on the field. ANd me off course behind them. Even if it meant a home run for someone.

One game I had my oldest grandson, so it was 17 years ago, I was looking down at him. In my arms, I heard one of my son's teammates grandpaws saying to his grandson, why are you standing there like a statue. Not moving for the ball. Handed my grandson, to my friend, not looking up and ran off to the field. WHen I got back he wanted to know how I knew. I told him his words told me all I needed to know. THat everytime my son had a seizure on the field that was exactly what the team did. So my son could get help.
He asked why and I told him. He said, well I owe my grandson a apology then, I told him I thought his grandson was owed one, But I thought he would be okay with it too. He would understand. Because many of the parents had thought the same way the first time they saw it. Now they know and just wait. And are just proud like I am. He said, well add one proud grandpa too.

I will make sure I tell anyone that complains from now on.

Donna

What a proud mama you must be. To feel the circling of community all around your son, understanding and being there for him. Usually these community sports have some pretty aggressive parents and won't understand. You are one lucky family to have this much cooperation among the players. It's also a learning experience for all the youth as well to be exposed to this and to learn to not judge but to help !!

There was a highschool student that was assigned the seat behind me all 4 years. He was subject to grand mal seizures and they were not controlled. He had these types of seizures constantly. I would run out of the room in fear for my life as it scared me to see him go thru all that. He was fortunate in that his classmates always took care of him. He had a set group of classmates that walked him from class to class and just about every where someone was with him.

Little did I know at the time that I was having petit mal seizures.

Right now, I can sit up and type (making lots of spelling errors, sorry), but when I get up to move around I experience extreme vertigo and the feeling like I am riding a rollercoaster, so hugging onto the walls as I move around. The numbness has left my arms and legs, but still very uncoordinated and having a strange headache, very loud tinnitus and of course my cat is sitting right near me staring at my face and yowling. So, either I am in and out of seizures or this is a migraine aura.

Does your son wear a seizure tracker as part of iphone or a special band on his wrist? I wear the Medic Alert bracelet that lets medics know that I have Epilepsy.

One weird thing about my Fitbit that records my sleep and I can pick up the reading from my iphone. It did not track my sleep patterns last night at all but did show me asleep at 9:30 pm until 8:30am this morning. I know I was awake playing games on my Kindle until midnight and then between midnight ant 2:30am I lost time. So, weird that my Fitbit would show me asleep at 9:30PM when I was awake playing Solitaire on my Kindle at that time.

My cat is yowling loudly now and staring at me following me from room to room.

Blue

Blue

Going to make meatloaf now that I can stand up without falling over. Still very off-balance and still with the loud tinnitus and headache, but getting much better.

Just have to be careful how I move around and when I am in the kitchen, always doing the dance with my cat who wants to encumpass the entire kitchen floor, lol.

That seizure App is not working correctly, so giving up on that and just writing in a notebook.

Blue

I have not found a seizure app. So no he doesn't use one.

We have what is called an visawear for him in public to also
keep at night close to him. It will alert 5 phone numbers that
he is in trouble if he presses a button, if we don't respond it
will send a ambulance or if we ask for it to send one it will.

I found this because we were going to get lifeline or something
like it and use most of his hours at night so he was safe.
This cost like $122.00 and that is all we pay for it. Till the
battery goes out.
I found it when I saw a ad that was about a lady that went
down a embankment and her cell phone wouldn't work, but
this did that her grandmother had bought her for christmas,
she passed out after pressing it. WOke up to police and her
dad. And ambulace and things.

Donna

Donna ~ Looked up visawear and see interesting product in there, thank you for sharing that webpage.

The county property I live in pays for Lifeline for all of us here. I wear the necklace with the button. I used to have the fall detector, but had to pay $30.00 a month for that and it was way to sensitive, any sudden movement caused it to call emergency. The Lifeline button I wear now is only for inside my apartment, would have to buy the one for outdoors. I wear my cell phone on me when I leave my apartment, but our cell towers are not that reliable. When I fell last May, I woke up on the pavement just outside my window during the middle of the day. People just walked by me thinking I was taking a nap, good grief.

Since I live alone I really need a much better alert system. When my bankruptcy goes thru will add it to my bucket list. I mostly worry at night being alone. It's been difficult climbing into that bed all alone and dealing with unpredictable noises that are scary. I have no one to protect me. I have always lived with a security system, this is the first place I have not used one. I live on the ground floor. Next door to me is the electrical room and beside that is the mail box for the building and the lunch room and lobby area/elevator. It's very active at night around here. If it's not emergency EMT's arriving, it's the police or people wandering the hallways and yelling for help.

When we have a tornado nearby, I head for the stairwell with my riding helmet in hand and have put it on when my vertigo gets out of control, like today. I also use a rollator to walk with. Used to use a cane but I fell using that last year, so bought a rollator.

Had a physical therapist come to my home to assess me, but that was useless. My vestibular system is permanent, no amount of physical therapy will strengthen that.

So, tonight I was capable of making dinner. I made a meatloaf (comfort food), baked potatoes, steamed veggies. It was soo nice to eat real food, as opposed to Meals on Wheels.

Take good care and soo glad that Derrick is OK !!

Blue

Sleep issue:

Woke up after 4 hours of sleep, wide awake, took another Klonopin and Benadryl and went back to sleep for another 4 hours. Don't want to trigger another Hypomanic state.

I notice if I get my full 8-10 hours sleep I feel soo much more stable with mood.

What is weird is that my trend is: I have 14 hours of sleep, then the trend winds down to one hour in 4 days, then back to 14 hours then back down to one hour. When the sleep winds down, my mood worsens. I keep telling my psych doc and his only comment is that anything less than 4 hours can cause a hypomanic state. He is refusing to give me anything for sleep to break the trend. When I see him next week, will push for something to help with this.

I have tried Melatonin at 2mg but it makes me feel weird the next day.

Found a new mood diary that I downloaded. It's effective as I can connect the filled in dots to show trends with a line. Easier to look at.

So, today, mood is ok since I slept 8 hours.

Hoping everyone is okay today. Wishing you all a happy productive day.

Blue

i usually only get three or four hours of sleep and then feel tired the rest of the time. I am glad you feel stable today. Is it because of your bp?