My last blog post was all about the Padre Island beach and what a good day it was. That great day turned into a hellish night and days since. While I was preparing to go to bed I took Charley out for a walk, and once outside, he wouldn't move. There were a ton of crickets making noise in the dark, and who knows what else was out there, so I thought something had him spooked. At that time, I actually couldn't tell if he wouldn't move right or couldn't move right.
It wasn't long before I realized something was really wrong with him. He'd been quiet and clingy that evening, but after I put him up on the bed, he started drooling excessively and was restless and aimlessly moving around. He was stumbling, and I realized I couldn't have him on the elevated bed so I moved some blankets down to the floor. Looking into his eyes, though, I saw that he definitely "wasn't right." At the national park I didn't have an internet connection or reliable cell service, so I finally just decided to pack up and go in to Corpus Christi to see if I could find a 24-hour emergency vet. I'm so glad I did. By the time we arrived, about 40 minutes later, he couldn't even hold up his own weight and his eyes weren't responsive to light.
My best guess was some kind of shellfish poisoning since we'd been on the beach, and at one point I'd seen him pick up a crab with his mouth and I had to get him to drop it. Who knows what he actually ingested. He had also carried around two different pieces of seaweed on the beach. At the vet hospital, they were perplexed, admitted him, did blood tests, got him on IV fluids, and began a lipid treatment for exposure to an unknown toxin. That was Monday, December 7. On Wednesday, when his body and neurological responses weren't responsive to the lipid treatments, they began to discuss our "options." Not good.
The most hopeful (and expensive) option was to take him to a veterinary neurology center, which was expected to have more experience identifying and dealing with neurological disturbances. For some reason, they didn't conclude that his condition was related directly to beach exposure. They suggested imaging, spinal fluid tests, and tests to identify whether it was a soil-borne disease picked up while we were traveling through the Southwest, and talked about possibilities ranging from cancer to encephalitis. The nearest vet neurology center was in Houston. I ended up deciding to do that, and made arrangements to pick him up in the wee hours and make the four-hour drive to Houston in order to get there at 8 a.m. Thursday.
None of their tests showed anything specific, and he was still in really bad shape. They admitted him in their 24-hour care area, I found an RV park as close as possible, then I took a city bus back up to the vet clinic. The veterinarian and vet neurologist had been asking around, looking for potential answers, and were finally informed that there had been a red tide during the month of November on the beach I was at, and it was certainly possible that he could have ingested something that had been exposed to the brevetoxin previously. There weren't any tests to confirm it, and they'd not found it responsive to any specific treatment, they just provide supportive care to an animal if it survives the exposure. After a few more days he started getting a little better.
I'm happy to say that after picking him back up Monday afternoon (December 14) he has been gradually improving. They said it will likely take weeks for the effects of the toxin to fully work through him. He is responsive now and aware of what's going on around him. He's able to eat and drink by himself, though not in the quantity he needs, so I've been hand feeding him too. His episodes of extreme vertigo have tapered way off (originally it seemed like he was having seizures). He still can't support his weight with his limbs, but most of the time he has enough control to hold his head up now, and today he began "scooting" to get around when I set him down on the grass, and when he found a site he was happy with, he went to the bathroom outside. I think he knows what he wants to do, but his body isn't fully cooperating.
This has been a horrible experience, but I am hopeful for his recovery. Charley's days running on the Gulf Coast beaches are unfortunately finished - I can't let that happen again.
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