I love pictures of Busy and Milkshake together. The contrast of their fur, and the cuddling they do is so appealing. I like, too, that it's a very similar kind of nurturing relationship to the one Busy and Britty had for the first five years of his life.******************************************
It has become increasingly difficult to get Milk to eat. Wonderful Hope sent me a scale that actually tells you what the weight is in understandable numbers (as opposed to the one I've been using that doesn't), and he's down to 9 pounds, 14 ounces. Back in March, before he started having seizures, he weighed something close to 12 pounds on my other weird scale. He's very wobbly - when he shakes his head, the way cats do, he can hardly stay on his feet. I've been getting at least a jar of baby food meat, mixed with lactose free milk, into him every day, but it's clearly not enough maintain his weight, it doesn't contain all the nutrients he needs, and I guess I'm gonna have to see if Dr. G. has any AD at his office. The only things Milk will willingly eat are treats; not much nutrition there, either. I now have three different kinds of dry food to give him with his pills - Wellness Core, Nature's Variety Chicken and Rice, and Wellness Kitten. He seems to prefer the NV, although as of yesterday, he doesn't eat more than two or three pieces of any of them. Maybe I should go out and buy a bucket of Meow Mix or something.
Okay, I got ten cans of AD this afternoon, and so far, have gotten about a half can into Milk. He also ate a few little pieces of baked chicken breast, and a bunch of treats. I'm going to weigh him often.
We have an appointment on August 23rd with the internal medicine specialist (not the doctor that the Ohio State neurologist recommended - when I said that I was told specifically to see him, the receptionist said that my appointment was with his associate. Which might be okay anyway; I know two people who took their cats to the original doctor and were not happy with him. He's supposed to stay the whole day, although I don't know what for exactly. The estimate was somewhere around $500; with ultrasound (which I'd been told wasn't useful for diagnosing the cause of seizures, so maybe the receptionist just made it up), $1200, and with the MRI (which I believe they don't even DO at this office), $2200.
The dosage reduction last week (1/4 pill less each day) seems to have been not a problem, thank goodness. As far as I know, he hasn't had any seizures since the reduction, and I haven't seen any of the "mini-seizures" - the odd behaviors that didn't include the seeming loss of awareness and foaming of the real thing. I wish I knew how rare a result this almost total lack of appetite is with phenobarbital. I have to assume that the phenobarb is the cause, because his appetite diminished immediately after he started taking the stuff.
I was just reminded of one of little Milk's funniest habits (which has disappeared, along with virtually everything else about him that was so wonderful) - he was the self-appointed litter box monitor. He'd sit in the kitchen and watch for the others to use the box, and then he'd make sure everything was properly buried. He'd scritch and scritch and scritch, and the other three would watch him like he was nuts....
This is really getting me down.
