A Week To Remember

Damn! This was a hard week on Lisa and I physically and emotionally. Last Friday we took our two dogs for a routine grooming. I was working hard on a new L'Oreal commercial when I got a call saying our little chiuahua, Chiquita, had to be rushed to the hospital because she had a massive seizure. She was treated and stabilized by the time I was able to get off work and everything seemed to be under control. The next morning I was working on Stephen Fung's short film when I got a call from the vet saying that Chiquita had another seizure and the medication they used to control it had made her stop breathing. They were saving her as I rushed into the clinic. She was in dire condition and looked like she was not going to make it. My heart was broken because she is the most adorable little dog in the world and I felt horrible because there was nothing we could do. They were able to revive her but she was in a deep coma which she did not seem to be coming out of. Normally, most dogs wake up after 5-6 hours but Chiquita was still comatose after 12.
The next day was the hardest. I was working on a Canon commercial and could not get away at all. My thoughts were on the little one all day. Lisa had called in the afternoon informing me that she did not seem responsive and there was a possibility that she might wake up at all. If that was the case, we needed to decide in the next 24 hours to put her down. Again, we were totally devastated. Being confronted with making that call was hard to swallow. I told Lisa to keep her hopes up and wait till we were both finished with work late that evening to decide. I tried to keep strong for Lisa and Chiquita but it was hard not to shed a few tears in my dressing room during lunch. I finished the job and rushed back out to the clinic. It was not a good sight. She was lying on the table still in a coma and "paddling". This is an involuntary movement of the legs, that mimics swimming. They said she had been doing it every hour for the 10 mintues or so and then would go back into the coma.
Not knowing what else to do, I remembered a Qi Gong techinique that I was taught as a teenager to help my mother when she had an aneurysm around 15 years ago. I did the Qi Gong for two hours while I waited for Lisa to get off work. Just as Lisa arrived, Chiquita suddenly lifted her head. It was a crazy moment because I wasn't sure if it was an involuntary movement or was she actually trying to wake up. Over the next two hours she tried to move two more times. We were so relieved that she was coming out of her sleep! To think we almost put her down! We went home exhausted but excited to see the improvement in her condition. Over the next day I visited her a few more times and she got better and better each time. Now she is in stable condition with normal stats. She is blind, which may be caused by slight brain damage from the seizures but she may regain her sight over time. She is still in the hospital and will remain till we can get Hong Kong's only animal neurologist to examine her.
I must say this experience was extremely difficult on Lisa and I. It would have been much less stressful if we weren't so busy working. Hopefully we are though the hardest part and can now focus on how we can keep this from happening again. What a week!