I feel like I did this to him. I told people today - a lot of people - that he was doing well. I should have just kept quiet and kept things to myself. When I was picking out the pill fragments for his last dose of Keppra at 2AM, the 1/4 pill was a little small, as was the "chunk", and I chose a 1/8 pill that was a little larger than usual on purpose, thinking that it might make up for the difference. And, when we were going to sleep, I got out the blue afghan for him to lay between my ankles, and I actually thought to myself, "Brother, how many seizures did he have on this...." Like foreshadowing. Not that there's anything that I could have done that would prevent it, I suppose. I truthfully don't believe that even if the pieces of the pills had been exact to the fragment of a gram, it would have kept this seizure from happening.
It was very different from the last 20 or 30 seizures. It makes me sick even to write all this. Although it seemed to go on forever, I started to count "one-a-thousand, two-a-thousand" shortly after it started, and I would guess that it lasted, at most 30 seconds, and possibly even a little less for the actual seizure. Aside from making a snuffling sound, like his nose was stuffed up - which I would guess was related to the foaming/salivation - he didn't make any noise. No growling or snarling. And while his body seemed a little stiff, he didn't flop violently like he had before. This was more like the first seizures he had, way back almost a year and a half ago. I was expecting all the horrors of the most recent episodes, and really didn't see anything similar. When the convulsing stopped, he lay absolutely still for so long that it crossed my mind that maybe he'd died. And then he started to jerk - he did it four times, big jerks - and I was terrified that he was going to have another seizure. And I can't remember where I put the liquid valium.... Or the catheter stuff from the emergency hospital. But that stopped, too, and he lay still for probably an entire minute. It's funny how long time is when something like this is involved; seconds seem like endless hours. Anyway, eventually he jumped down and headed wobbily - is that a word? - to the kitchen. I'd left four bowls with 1/2 can of Fancy Feast in each one, because the cats only had raw for their "dinner" tonight and I was afraid they'd be hungry during the night. He was pushing one of those bowls around by the time I got there. I asked him if he wanted fresh Fancy Feast and he peowed and came running over. He ate almost the entire can and was still looking for more, so I got out the raw. But it was cold, and I didn't want to take the time to warm it with hot water, so I mixed it with the leftover FF, added hot water, and put it down. He didn't want it. Anyway, he paced a while, and kept climbing unsteadily up onto my desk. He was standing with one foot on the keyboard when he sort of collapsed. There's not a lot of room for standing where he was on the keyboard shelf. I put him down, but he climbed up three or four more times. Eventually, he settled into the kitty Pi on the bench beside the desk, and now he's asleep there.
I am aware that I'm rambling. I can't even describe how upset I am about this. Not that I had any expectation that he'd be seizure-free forever or anything. But it was so nice not to feel like this was going to be hanging over us again. It's hard to describe, but having "another seizure" embedded in my brain affects the quantity and quality of my sleep. For days now, I've been waking up every time he moves during the night. It's like - even though there's nothing to be done about it - my mind thinks that if I'm alert enough, somehow that will keep the seizure from happening. I can't explain it. Every seizure he has is like a personal horrible attack on him that I can't help but feel that I should be able to save him from. And obviously, I can't . And geez, today he got all of his pills exactly to the minute on time, for a change. No chasing him around and pretending that I wasn't trying to grab him. No delays of any kind.
Okay, the one thing that the rational part of my head - that minute little corner that actually functions these days - is saying is the question of his phenobarb level, which I didn't take him to have checked. I've known ever since he started to eat on his own a few weeks ago that it was probably time to worry. I will have to take him tomorrow for bloodwork, just for my own satisfaction, to see what his phenobarb level is. Maybe it's gotten low, and if it doesn't allow a whole mess of seizures to happen, it could stay low? I doubt it, and he's even lost a few ounces - I just started giving him two bottles of EVO canned again today. What I want is - impossible, I know, but I can't help it - to be reassured that this isn't the beginning of one of those horrible periods when he has one seizure after another at ever decreasing intervals. Lots of the other epikitties seem to have a seizure here or there; he never did that. For Milk, once they started, they just kept getting worse and closer and scarier.
I don't want either of us to have to go through that again. And I can't prevent it if it does happen.
ETA: Lots of odd behavior after this seizure. Even a day later, he was still showing an excessive startle response to common things - the kitchen curtains blowing in the breeze, the noise of cars driving past out front - and hiding; he didn't even come out for Rege's treat routine, which is one of the highlights of his little life.
