Tika staggering

SUMMARY: Just a note for myself.

This evening, when Tika was partway through dinner, she started to walk away from her dish. Not unusual; she walks away from her dish partway through almost every meal lately. Oftentimes just to enjoy having me feed it to her a handful at a time onto the floor or onto the bed or whatever.

But this time, she staggered, as if about to collapse.  I grabbed her and held her for a few seconds. She seemed to be breathing OK, so it wasn't kibble caught in her throat. I let go, and she took a few more steps, staggering/reeling.  I grabbed her and held her again for a bit longer, and stroked her, and then let her go--and she was fine. Went onto the deck, one of her favorite places, and lay down.

I just want to remember exactly when this happened.

This was very much like what happened that day in November at the agility trial when we discovered that she had heart problems, and after which she pretty much retired.

In the month or so before I lost Jake, he had a couple of brief episodes like this, which I chalked up to too much exercise or some such. After it was all over, it seemed more likely that these had been ministrokes or tiny seizures.

With Tika, sure, it could be a little stroke, or another instance of her heart not pumping properly and not enough oxygen in the brain. A tiny heart attack?

I'm trying not to be sad and scared.  It's been almost 2 years since the heart disease diagnosis, after which I thought I might lose her any day. She could still hang in there.

Or not.

Time will tell.