Changing it up

Well, naturally everything has gotten much much worse since that last post. I am mostly writing this as a record for myself (and others googling cat epilepsy?) so sorry, people who aren't interested. But here is a picture of Banana. 

Thursday night he fell apart again with the crazy overgrooming and scratching of  his feet and entire head. By Friday morning his right eye was half shut from scrabbling at his temple. 

It occurred to me that we started a new food less than 2 weeks before this all started with his seizures on May 5th. We had them on Royal Canin Urinary SO Moderate Calorie, and then I switched them to the regular because my vet didn't have the low cal. I did some research and discovered the primary symptom of food allergies in cats is itching, especially of the face and ears. And food allergies can also cause seizures. And soy is a common allergen, present in the regular version of that food but not in anything he had ever eaten prior. So THAT is all very interesting. The first thing I did Friday morning was call my vet, who said she would put in a call to the neurologist to see if he had other cats with this problem. Then I went and got the Moderate Calorie food and took away the other stuff. 

I took the afternoon off work and when I got home at 1:30 he was still a twitchy disaster. Finally I talked to the vet, who said the neurologist didn't think the phenobarb was causing the itching, but she disagreed and thinks we should taper off the phenobarb and switch to a new medication called Keppra. I agreed 100% with this plan. She called in Keppra to the pharmacy and I picked it up and it was $115 for a month's supply and the pills were enormous, far too big to give to a cat. SIGH. 

I drove to the vet's office to show her the pills and she agreed they were ridiculous and that I should return them. We talked about it and agreed to start decreasing his phenobarb immediately regardless as clearly he is not tolerating it well. Compounding pharmacies can turn Keppra into treat-like form, so she is going to call on Monday and see how much that costs. She's worried it will be expensive but at this point I do not care. We don't have kids; what else are we going to spend our money on? She gave me some sample treat flavors to see if he likes one more than the other and THANK GOD he loves them all. It's going to be much more awesome giving him a treat 3 times a day as opposed to shoving a pill down his throat. 

So after all that I went home and Banana was relaxed and affectionate all evening like nothing had even happened. ARGHGH. That makes me wonder about the food, though - maybe I really am onto something there. We are decreasing the phenobarb anyway because clearly it isn't doing a good job of controlling his symptoms regardless, and it also makes him pathetically clumsy and is hard on the liver long-term. 

This morning he purred and cuddled with me for hours. He did have a moderately compulsive grooming session this afternoon and sort of half-heartedly scratched in the direction of his head, but we were able to ward it off for the most part and it was nothing like the horribleness of the last few days. 

So we will see! This has been an incredible learning experience and I think it is far from over, which sometimes I am fine with and sometimes makes me want to cry. Once we get him stable I'm semi-seriously thinking of starting a feline epilepsy website because it is so difficult to find information about this stuff. Even my vet is learning a lot, I think. It's just a super rare condition. We sure are lucky. 

One Day at a Time

Ben said I have to make a new post because that picture of Banana makes him too sad to look at. So here he is a few days ago. 

He is doing better since increasing the phenobarb, but he's also just now starting to really come out of the sedation phase, so who knows what's going to happen when that wears off. I am starting to get over the idea that the meds are going to be a magic pill that returns him to the way he was before, and accept that he may always be a little off and have issues. It's sad! My buddy! But he still sleeps on my pillow and purrs and cuddles, so as long as we can keep him seizure-free and the compulsive stuff under control, I can live with that. 

Banana Update

I was pretty anxious about leaving Banana to go on that trip, as I'm sure you can imagine. We have a great pet sitter who has been taking care of them for years, though, and I trusted her to take good care of them. She did have some drama giving him his medicine a few times, but overall it went fine.

When we got back, we were surprised at how normal he was acting, much moreso than before we left. We had his phenobarbital levels checked and they were within the normal range, although on the low side of average. He was not having any symptoms at all so the plan was to recheck in 6 months to make sure everything was okay.

Then a few days later he started FREAKING OUT. The slightest out of the ordinary event will now send him into a tailspin of anxious overgrooming, biting at his feet, and scratching his right ear, causing it to swell up like so.

It sucks. Our vet consulted with the head of neurology at NC State and they thought he might be reacting to a different formulation of phenobarbital that was in the refill I picked up at Target pharmacy. So I went back to the vet school to get some of their version (which is made by the same manufacturer, so I had my suspicions this strategy would not work). It didn't work. He's been off the Target phenobarb since Saturday and last night he was worse than ever with the ear scratching. It's like a vicious cycle - he scratches because of anxiety to the point of irritating it, and then continues to scratch because it's irritated. ARGH.

Eventually he does get tired and fall asleep, which allows the ear to calm down and when he wakes up he is sometimes okay. Until the next stressful thing happens (this morning: having to take his medicine) and it starts all over again.

Fortunately, I have found an absolutely incredible online forum for owners of epileptic cats. I would be lost without those people - from them I have learned that this type of compulsive behavior goes hand in hand with feline epilepsy and that his urinary tract issues may very well be related, too. I can't believe that there is so little information out there about this disease that average cat owners are a better source of information than veterinarians - but it's true. My vet is fabulous but she clearly doesn't have a lot of experience with this because it's so rare.

Anyway, from the forum people I learned that this behavior is very typical and almost certainly means his phenobarb dose is too low. Given that my vet said his blood levels were below the median, I suspect this is the case and that we're going to have to increase his dose. I hope we can do that today because I am so tired of worrying about him. 

I miss my cat. 

Trip Report! Newfoundland: The Last Day

Our flight was leaving at 4pm, so after a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes at The Spaniard's Room, we set off back toward St. John's. We initially took the scenic coastal route but it was way too annoying so after a while we transferred back over to the highway.

Naturally, since we were leaving, it was an absolutely gorgeous day (albeit still cold). We drove back up to Signal Hill and went to the Geo Center, which we had skipped the first time. It tells about the geological history of the area (summary: very very old) and we got to see a 5 billion year old rock, so that was pretty cool.

Then we went to the top for one last look at the ocean and St. John's. 

The last iceberg!

Newfoundland was awesome, and we only saw one tiny corner of it. Everyone thought it was a weird place to go but everyone was wrong! It is an incredible place to go! In addition to all the scenery and weird culture, it was also the cheapest vacation we have taken in years (which is good, you know, considering that my cat now has a neurologist). 

We definitely will be heading back to see the West Coast at some point - Gros Morne National Park is by all accounts absolutely stunning. Fjords! I think when we do go back it will be in September or early October, though - still outside the tourist season, but with better weather than May. Still, even with the cold and rain, I'm glad we went when we did because those icebergs were a once in a lifetime sight. 

Go to Newfoundland! 

Trip Report! Newfoundland: Day Six

I was really sad to be leaving the Fishers Loft Inn. It's a week later and I still wish I was there!

But we pressed onward, south in the general direction of St. John's. Here is a town we stopped in. Ben laughed about this constantly for three or four days prior.

The Dildo Area Interpretation Center was closed, thank goodness, because I would have felt like a real jerk going in there solely to see if they had some hilarious things to buy that said "Dildo" on them. You do have to wonder what they are thinking with that map of the harbor, though, right? I mean, come on.

Apparently there are ongoing discussions about changing the name but the old timers are resisting. I guess it probably does boost tourism for the area? 

We stayed our last night in Newfoundland at The Spaniard's Room Bed & Breakfast in Spanish Bay, about an hour north of St. John's. This B&B has absolutely spectacular reviews and looked great from the outside, a huge old historic house.

Inside, though, it definitely tended more toward homey than luxurious. There is a sign asking you to take your shoes off when you come indoors, they have a friendly little dog running around, and they didn't give us a key or anything. It was truly like being a guest in someone's home. 

We quickly figured out that The Spaniard's Room has an excellent reputation because its owners are absolutely fantastic hosts. They were both really friendly and offered suggestions about the area, and also asked if we'd like to have dinner there, as they had just gotten some Atlantic lobsters they'd be willing to cook for us. Well, that sounded pretty great! We went for it.

In the meantime, though, we headed over to the nearby small town of Brigus, and had lunch at The Country Corner, a little combination souvenir shop/restaurant/ice cream store. I got the cod chowder special, which was stellar. Perfectly on a cold windy day.

Ben got a turkey sandwich and split pea soup.

And then we both got one of these, which was probably excessive: blueberry crumble with blueberry ice cream and blueberry sauce. Yum.

After lunch we set out to explore Brigus a little bit. This is the town hall, which was across the street from the restaurant.

Here is a view of the harbor, which some nearby signs claimed was once the busiest in Newfoundland. You could supposedly walk from one side of the harbor to the other on top of the fishing boats.

It was a really cold day. Not just windy and rainy, as other days had been, but genuinely straight up cold. Here is Benjamin cowering in a tunnel that some rich guy made his minions blast out of the solid rock for him, so he could have a shortcut from his house to the harbor.

I made him keep walking around, though, to see the sights.

This is the main tourist attraction in town, polar explorer Bob Bartlett's house. It was not yet open for the season.

We drove a few miles over to Cupids to see what was going on there. Fortunately the archaeological site was open - Cupids was the first English settlement in Canada, and is second only to Jamestown as the oldest in North America. It was first settled in 1610 and the site is an active archaeological dig. Here is the little house that serves as the visitors center.

We didn't do the full tour because Ben was too cold to stay outside but we talked with one of the historical society people for a while and it was really interesting. In addition to telling us about the history of the site, she also had about the craziest accent we had heard yet, among other things pronouncing chimney like "chimley", which took us a minute or so to figure out. I googled it later and apparently it is a regional dialect thing primarily from some very small part of England. So I guess we know where that lady's ancestors are from!

After Cupids we got some coffee at Tim Horton's and read the internet on our phones for a while (not pictured).

Then we went back to the B&B for dinner. Look at the lobsters!

We were pretty excited. The guy said he cooked them in sea water, not just tap water with salt added. I asked if he got the sea water when he bought the lobsters and he said, "oh, no, I just went across the street and collected it with a bucket." Okay, well, that's awesome.

He gave us a bunch of instructions and tips on how to eat the lobsters. Ben did most of the disassembly work.

We also got a salad and then apple crumble for dessert, and for all of that they charged us the outrageous price of $22 US per person. It was such a good deal I almost felt bad! The Spaniard's Room is definitely a keeper.

Trip Report! Newfoundland: Day Five

One of the things I most wanted to do while we were in the Trinity area was hike the Skerwink Trail, considered one of Canada's top hiking paths. It was conveniently located within walking distance of the Fishers Loft Inn.

As you can see, we woke up to not super great hiking weather, but decided to go for it anyway. It says a lot about Newfoundlanders, too, that we asked a couple people how to get to the trailhead and nobody commented on the fact that we were going out to hike 3 miles in cold wind and rain. So off we set, down the hill.

Our loft suite was the entire third floor of the yellow house. The dining room is right next door in the green one.

Found it! The internet describes this hike as moderate-difficult and a bunch of people on TripAdvisor commented that parts were slippery. This all turned out to be lies. I mean, it wasn't like walking along on a flat surface but it was not hard or scary at all.

Ben insisted it was fine for me to wear skinny corduroys with my hiking shoes but I did not feel confident about it. Fortunately we didn't see any other people at all, not until the very end when a few guys were hiking in with boards and shovels to do some trail work.

The trail lived up to the hype. Gorgeous ocean views at every turn.

You can see even from this height how clear and beautiful the water is.

We took time at every single point to inspect the views.

Senior picture.

The weather wasn't really bad at all. It was a little misty but didn't actually rain until the very end.

When Benjamin crawled out to this point I was pretty sure this was going to be my last glimpse of him ever. Steep cliffs! I think he gets a special joy from freaking me out.

We got a little lost trying to find our way back to the inn from the end of the trail, and it was pouring in earnest by that point, but eventually we made it and went inside to get dried off and relax for a while. Then we set out for Trinity proper, where there are a lot of historical sites to investigate.

I had read that most of Newfoundland has not really figured out tourism yet, but Trinity definitely has. We found that to be true - it was the most developed of the small towns we visited, and even though it was May they already had the tourist sites open for the season. Here is the heart of the village.

We visited all of these buildings, which are either original to the 1700s or were rebuilt to the exact specifications of the originals. Trinity was for centuries a cod fishing village, and we learned all about the industry and the family who ran the business for the entire town. We met some really interesting characters in the cooperage and blacksmith buildings in particular. The blacksmith guys didn't seem to want us to leave - they kept regaling us with stories of local people and their adventures and telling us about other tourists they'd met over the years, too, all while working on cranking out their ironworks projects. It was neat! And weird! Naturally we were the only tourists around.

We found one of the four restaurants and were grateful to see it was open.

This was the view from our table. The weather was very bad by this point. 

We both could not resist the fish & chips, and it was a good idea - I think this was the best fried fish of my life. I also got an iceberg beer, which is made in St. John's from the water of a 25,000 year old iceberg. It tasted just like regular beer, though.

We met some people at our B&B in St. John's and saw them again at dinner in Port Rexton. They told us they'd been up to see the icebergs at Cape Bonavista and that we should check it out if we had time. (Cape Bonavista is where John Cabot made landfall in 1497 as the first European to set foot in North America since the Vikings.) I felt like we had already seen some pretty good iceberg action but we didn't have anything else to do so we drove the 30 miles or so up to the end of the peninsula. I am so glad we did - the scene up there was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.

The pictures just cannot convey how extreme the conditions were - the freezing wind gusts, sleet pelting our faces, the ocean crashing into the cliffs and icebergs - it was something I will never forget.

I feel like we are so lucky to have gotten to see that; the icebergs this year are the best they've been in decades (a "bumper crop", per the blacksmith guys in Trinity) and we were there at precisely peak season. I never knew I wanted to see icebergs until I saw them!