He had a seizure on August 22nd. For the week after that he had stopped itching but still seemed on edge a lot of the time - he was grooming himself for long, long periods of time, to the point where he was having hairballs every 4-5 days, which has never happened before in his life. On Saturday the 30th of August he was a nervous disaster almost every waking second and by the end of the day I was at the end of my rope. I know I have said this before but this was FOR REAL. END OF MY ROPE. I assumed he was going to have another seizure any second and just be an anxious mess all the rest of the time for however long he managed to live. I went to bed that night seriously thinking about his quality of life (and ours!) and whether it was worth it to keep dragging this out.
But since then, he's been pretty much normal. No more seizures, no more nervous grooming, no more hairballs. He's demandingly affectionate and has a normal cattish amount of wild spells followed by relaxed sleeping and cuddles. He loves his thrice daily treats and gets very demanding when he knows it's time for them. (Thank the baby Jesus for that veterinary compounding pharmacy.) He's essentially a normal cat. It's incredible.
So I think it just took a really really long time for that phenobarbital to get out of his system. Even with tapering so slowly to practically nothing, it was still almost a month after the last dose before he stopped being anxious and uncomfortable. But now - he's not. He's okay. Maybe a touch jumpier than he used to be, but well within normal limits, and probably even less so than his neurotic sister. The people on my forum says it's even possible that his recent seizure was caused by the phenobarbital levels dropping in his system. I don't want to assume that's true, however, because I think it's unrealistic to not expect more seizures in the future. There's no denying he's epileptic. But I feel like as long as he is healthy and happy otherwise, I can totally 100% deal with this - emotionally, financially, whatever. Yeah, if he lives ten years he's going to cost us a lot more money than (hopefully) all our other cats will cost us in our lives combined. And will require 3x a day pet sitting when we go places. But I feel like we can go places! And do things! I'm really proud of us for sticking with it and figuring out his issues. Our little special needs buddy. He's worth it, no doubt. Sometimes I have been thinking that God gave Banana epilepsy so I will be sure to appreciate him every day. I don't even believe in God! But you never know, I guess. I'm sure not taking a single day with him for granted.
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