Emma was a rambunctious and spirited little Boston Terrier, loved by Chelsie B. who had wanted a dog forever. Five days before Chelsie’s eighteenth birthday, her parents got Emma and brought her home as a present for their daughter. We asked if Emma was a good girl, “No!” Chelsie laughed, “She was terrible! She was just so stubborn. She had that Terrier personality that I was not prepared for.”
When Emma was ten, she started to get sick. Chelsie noticed that Emma seemed “off”. Not low energy, nothing physical, but something in her personality had changed. “I didn’t know what was going on, I figured maybe she was getting older,” Chelsie said. One month later, Emma had her first seizure.
Chelsie got Emma into the vet right away, but nothing showed up. Everything tested as just fine. “The vet told me to come back if she had another seizure,” Chelsie remembered. At 4pm that afternoon, Emma did. They returned to the vet for some medication and steroids to manage the seizures while tests were conducted and results were waited upon.
At 1am that same night, Emma had yet another seizure that lasted for longer than two minutes. “I gave her some medication and after we went to bed, everything was good,” Chelsie said. But the seizures continued and worsened in frequency the following morning, so Emma was brought to the emergency vet. The neurological vet, Dr. Diaz, recommended a CT Scan as he suspected a neurological cancer was affecting Emma. But her pet guardians did not want to proceed with treatment, and instead took her home to watch her and continue giving her medication and her favourite treats: hamburgers and muffins.
Chelsie paused here in the interview, tears welling up in her eyes. “From the time of the first seizure to the time we had to put Emma down, it was only two weeks. It was so fast,” she recalled sadly. Despite her loss, Chelsie smiles brightly at the memory of her stubborn, lovable Emma.
