10:30 AM - 1/2 phenobarb tablet (8mg.approx), 125mg (approx)levetiracetam (generic Keppra), and 1/2 Marin tablet. Depending on the size of the 125mg "chunk", sometimes I may add a smaller 1/8 tablet chunk, just for good measure. (Just as an aside, the phenobarbital is made by WestWard pharmaceuticals, which is located in, amazingly, that rich Arab country in Africa - oh, I hate my memory, or lack of it these days - where they built the indoor ski resort, and the giant hotel, and all the American universities have branches now? DUBAI!! Someone from there looked at one of these blogs... crap. When I remember it, I'll come and edit this. Anyway, these pills are better - although they're harder to find, and Costco charges more for them than CVS does for the other brand - but these are a flat, thin pill. The other ones are so small and tall/thick that splitting them into two, much less four pieces would be impossible. And the levetiracetam comes from www.universaldrugstore.com in Canada. I haven't priced the new USA generic Keppra, but someone else said they were still $1 a pill....)
6:00 PM - 125mg Keppra, 1/2 Marin tablet. (Occasionally, I give him 1/4 tablet of Pepcid AC here, because the Marin can cause stomach upset unless there's food in there, and Milk's eating is a little erratic, to say the least. He does eat on his own, but very rarely the minute I put his dish down, and he's likely to graze most of the day from that first feeding. He's one of the most enthusiastic consumers of the raw chicken/supplements - he loves his chunks.
10:00 PM - 3/4 (approx. 12mg) phenobarbital
2:00 AM - 125mg Keppra + 1 chunk (approx 1/8 of a 500mg tablet). Now, my math is poor, but I think 500mg divided by 8 equals about 65mg, which seems like so much more than one of those little chunks could possibly be..... I don't know. At any rate, I am still using uneven dosages, which is frowned upon, but it makes sense to me because almost all of his seizures were in the very early morning - so, I want to make sure that there's plenty of medication keeping his brain in order during the night. It might not be correct, but until something happens to convince me that I'm wrong, I'm going with it, because, as I said above - "so far, so good...."
This is the Annual Spring Neutered Male Crazy Period around here. And this year, we've added the presence of Cinnaminnie - unspayed Feral Female Extraordinaire, and her slightly nightmarish - but at least SHE's spayed - daughter, the lovely but exceptionally grumpy and aggressive, Toot the Tortie. So, now, the battle is between crazy and mean, apparently. Tootle and Minnie are both quite fearsome to the boys; a significant part of their days is spent chasing shrieking males twice their size up and down the steps. Tootie has devoted most of her attention to Burble lately. He outweighs her by a good five pounds, and is three times her size, but she doesn't let that deter her. She butts him aside from his food, she growls at him any time he walks by, and she will sit in the doorway to the bathroom, where he likes to explore the closet, waiting for him to show up so she can launch herself upon him. Minnie's favorite target is poor Scruffy, who has never bothered anyone else, ever. I watch The Girls carefully to make sure they're not aggressive with Milkshake, because he's still wobbly enough that I don't want him falling off something whilst trying to escape their not-so-loving attentions.
I guess, as Johnny Carson used to say (or DID he?), And so it goes...... Maybe it was Red Skelton. (I touched Red Skelton once. Well, actually, I bumped into him coming down the steps into the formal entry in Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. That was in the days before celebrities had entourages, I guess. Nothing like a little free association every now and then, right?) Or maybe it was Charles Couralt who used to say that...
The other day, a very interesting person who owns a bunch of ferrets, one of whom is diabetic, posted a picture on the Feline Diabetes Message Board. I don't know where she got it from, and I am frankly ashamed that I didn't ask her if I could "borrow" her picture, but it struck me as being SO funny, I could hardly see straight. So, on this note, I'm done for today:
