Friday, January 30, 2009

First day in public....



Blitzen and Hannah had a wonderful night and morning of bonding. He really likes to be with her and will go in to check on her often. It is really a neat thing to watch. Last night we practiced the "seizure game" (alerting to her seizure shirts). He alerted to it right away. Then he got his reward....playing with his plush squeaky toy!!!! He goes nuts!!!

This morning in class we practiced teaching the dogs to go "under" the tables in restaurants. Blitzen did very well with this command. Legally, the dogs don't have to lay under the tables, but it is best to keep them out of the way as much as possible.

We broke for lunch and all met at the mall afterwards for our first outing in public. Blitzen is very alert to everything, so it is difficult to keep him from distractions. He "heeled" better than I expected, but still likes to pull more than he should. We are going to try a new harness tomorrow so Hannah can help walk him better. I think he pulls because she is either in front or behind me and he wants to be with her. I think this new harness will help alleviate that.

The biggest problem we had was the elevator. He is very afraid and unsure of them. He actually panicked so much he pulled me to my knees the first time. Jeremy practiced with us and we went in the elevator with one of the other dogs so Blitzen could feed off his confidence. This really helped, but we will have to practice this quite a bit.

After the mall, we went back and rested some (we were all exhausted!!). Then we went to Arby's for dinner. He did fantastic. He never got up once. Then we went to Meijer to get some snacks. He was a little unsure of the parking lot, but once inside he was great. he "heeled" right beside the cart. People seemed to clear out of the way when they saw us coming! A couple people asked to pet him, but there was absolutely no negativity. I think we will all sleep well tonight!
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Beautiful Hannah...

How this journey started....

Hannah was born prematurely at 34 weeks gestation. She was a relatively healthy preemie; initially having difficulty maintaining body temperature and needing to grow. She weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces at birth. When she was four months old she began to drool, non stop. We were told the first year she was "teething." At 18 months old, we really started searching for reasons of why her shirt was always soaking wet. We saw various specialists who always sent us to another specialist, saying "everything looks okay." She spent years in oral motor/feeding therapy to help her not to drool. It wasn't until she was four years old and in preschool that we started to get some answers. Her preschool teacher commented one day that she wasn't reponding when her name was called. I took this information to her pediatrician who then orderd an EEG, "just to rule it out." Much to our shock and amazement, the results showed, she was having seizures. That is the day our journey REALLY began. Once she began taking seizure medication the drooling almost stopped completely. (She will still drool to this day when she is having seizure activity). Since then, it has been a roller coaster; countless medications and medication changes. She has never really reponded well to any medication.

About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.

About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.

Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....