3:30 AM

I hit the sack last night in the third quarter of Monday Night Football. There was little pleasure in watching my FantasyFootball team sink into oblivion, and sleep, I've tested and learned, is the best for forgetting things - well, for a while anyway. My head hit the pillow, as I geared myself up for a good eight hours of forgetting. 1 and 3 for the season so far- could anything be worse?

It was pitch dark, the clock read 3:30am, when the tremors began. It startled me at first, but then the sleep left my brain and I regained my bearings. It all felt too familiar. The restrained jerks, the stiff jolts, the silent struggling - our dog Phoebe was experiencing another seizure, a mild one, but a seizure nonetheless.

Seizures have become somewhat of a trademark for Phoebe these days. She typically experiences one about every other month, and when asked, the vet reassured us that it was common in little dogs ("Toy breeds," he called her). Their blood-sugar level drops quickly, or something, and that's what triggers it. It was quite frightening the first time Jess and I saw Phoebe do this, but now it's become much a part of the routine of caring for her, like feeding her or giving her a bath.

Jess was first to call it, "She's having a seizure." She stated this more matter-of-factly than in alarm. Then she moved in clockwork fashion, like a surgeon who sees past the gore of an ER patient to the list of immediate procedures needed to be performed.

"Get the white towel," barked Jess. She had Phoebe sprawled out on the bathroom floor.

"Where?" I asked.

"In the closet." In the middle of the night, I had woken up to find myself as Jess' surgeon aid.

I came back with the white towel.

"Lay the towel down."

"Why?"

"No questions. Just do it."

After the towel was under Phoebe, the inevitable happened, her bladder let go. This was the predicted stage 2 of the seizure. Next, after things had calmed down, we moved into stage 3, and I carried her to the dark, dewy backyard. There, she had plenty of room to work out the rest of the shakes. I watched Phoebe finish her business from the back door window while Jess made up a new place for Phoebe to spend the remainder of the night.

From beginning to end, the seizure lasted nearly a half hour. Before I crawled back into bed at 4am, I checked espn.com to confirm my FantasyFootball defeat. It was official. I had lost, and my prize was a dog low on sugar.