Hi, I am Karl’s mom. I want to tell you about the Loopies, otherwise known as Discoid Lupus.
When people meet Karl and his sister, they are often very impressed by them. Both are quite attractive, and Karl is well-behaved. Sister doesn’t spend much time in public because she is rather vocal (AKA she has a big mouth and the sun is not good for her). Karl gets many compliments on both his appearance and his behavior. Their personalities are big, they’re full of opinions, and they take their job of watching over the world very seriously. But what most people don’t know is that both of them live with chronic medical conditions.
About six months before Karl’s first seizure, I started noticing small changes in Sister. Her nose was getting unusually dry. In the summer, the humidity in our part of Alaska could drop as low as 10%, so dry skin was something both humans and dogs dealt with regularly. Because of that, I didn’t worry at first. I assumed the dry nose issue was environmental and that it would resolve once the weather shifted.
But it didn’t.
I tried everything I could think of. Nose butter, specialty balms, gentle moisturizers made specifically for dogs, anything that promised to soothe or restore moisture. I applied them daily (or more), hoping one morning she would wake up with a soft, healthy nose again. But no matter what I did, it stayed stubbornly dry, cracked, and rough to the touch.
Around that same time, I also started noticing a little bit of mucus in her nose every now and then. Nothing dramatic, just one of those odd little details that sticks in the back of your mind. Between the cracking skin and the intermittent discharge, I felt a small pull of concern. I couldn’t explain it yet, and it wasn’t enough to alarm me, but something didn’t feel quite right.
Looking back, those were the first signs, quiet, subtle, and easy to dismiss. Life carried on. We played, we traveled, and we simply assumed she was fine. We had no idea her immune system had already started a fight we couldn’t see, one we wouldn’t fully understand until much later.
Karl’s sister has a condition called Discoid Lupus, which is an autoimmune disease of the skin. In her case, it causes sores that itch a lot and don’t heal properly. It’s very important that she doesn’t scratch or chew at herself, even though she feels itchy all the time. To help, she takes Apoquel and Zyrtec in the mornings to reduce the urge to scratch, and she takes different antibiotics often to support her boost immune system and help heal her open wounds.
The night Karl had his first seizure, his sister had just cut her nose on the ice a day or two earlier. In Alaska, when the snow freezes solid in December, even a soft puppy nose can get hurt. Years later, that cut is still there and has never fully closed.
While Karl was seizing and we were all panicking, his sister was panicking too, running around the room trying to help. In the chaos, she must have bumped her nose, reopening the cut that had just started to scab, and blood began pumping from it – it was literally squirting from her nose! As our panic grew, her blood pressure rose, and the bleeding got worse. By the time Karl’s seizure ended, she had sprayed blood all over the room. Later, we joked that the room looked like a crime scene. You have to joke after a night like that, or you would just cry.
After the seizure was over and Karl and my husband went outside, I focused on calming Sister and stopping her nose from bleeding. At that point, we didn’t yet know about Discoid Lupus. We just knew that Shepherds often have skin problems, but we didn’t understand why this cut wouldn’t heal or why she felt so itchy all the time. We know a lot more now. The disease is cruel, but it is mostly manageable for Sister. She is much luckier than others with this condition.
Life with the Shepherds is full of warmth and love, but there are times of pain and uncertainty; that’s how it is with family.