State of the Lars: continuing to improve!

Lars' digestive tract finally went into overdrive yesterday with all the tummy meds he's on to make him download--after breakfast he had a regular download followed by a somewhat squishy one, then followed by a liquipoo. /TMI This is exactly what we were trying to achieve with the max dose of Lactulose and we finally reached maximum velocity! This means dialing back Lars' Lactulose dose to 5cc per day (3cc in the morning, 2cc at night) and see how that goes. If we achieve standard soft poos we're golden again; if we still have maximum velocity ick then I'm to call back to see if we dial back the Lactulose some more.

The trial at 96 hours' interval on the Mirtazepine went pretty well--his appetite didn't flag until yesterday morning when he was due for his next dose, and picked right back up again once yesterday morning's dose kicked in a few hours after dosing. So that's going to be our go-to dose for the coming while. The goal is to see if he can eventually go without the Mirtazepine and still have an appetite without it, but for now...yeah...

This morning marked a very happy and somewhat aggravating milestone! Before he got sick, Lars would agitate me to get up to feed him his breakfast by jumping atop my hope chest, which is stacked with a goodly part of my tee-shirt collection. I hate it when he jumps up there because the stacks are not the most stable and, occasionally, his jumps upon them cause some of them to fall off the stack and also destabilize the rest of the stack(s) that remain. Yeah, I know--get another dresser, but there's no room in the master bedroom for another dresser, so that's where they live...Anyway, this morning Lars jumped onto my hope chest/tee-shirts' stacks like three times!! :) I was both annoyed and incredibly happy all at once!! A great sign that he's really starting to feel better!

He's also been a bit of a dick to the other kittehs in the house this morning--agitating and causing what we call "fisticuffs"--boxing at the other three kids and posturing and a bit of hissing. He's been corrected several times so far this morning. I think he was agitating because he was hungry, LOL, and the Mirtazepine's giving him the Cat Crazies in full force now that he's feeling a bit better. Gotta keep an eye and an ear out for fighting today and in the coming days...

The Monday update with VCA was a good one--Dr. M was pleased to hear that Lars was able to get through the 96 hour interval with the Mirtazepine, that his personality continues to return, and that he's continued to download on a regular basis (or even moreso as he found out after the call from Cindy the tech, LOL) As long as Lars maintains status quo or improves we're golden--no need for another evaluation visit or any more testing/endoscopy. If Lars starts heading backwards into illness again, then we'll have to re-evaluate at the very least. It could take 3-4 weeks for him to completely return back to normal from this bout of illness, so I'm trying to be a patient mama; daddy's perfectly patient, but not me, LOL. I want my boy back, dammit! :/ At least now things are slowly returning to normalcy! :)

Yay! :D

State of the Harlow: of allergies and kitty colds...

Harlow is, generally speaking, a sneezy and wheezy kitty most of the time we've had him in our house. Lots of head congestion, usually with clear discharge from his nose. He lives with chronic recurring herpes virus he caught at the shelter (pretty much all the cats at the cattery are carriers of it, only a select few have recurring problems with it and Harlow's one of them) and about a month ago he had a flare which turned into a bacterial infection which required a course of antibiotics as well as antibiotic eye drops for his one watery eye. He bounced back pretty well, but the sneezing and wheezing persisted, albeit with less eye watering and clear nasal discharge. Could Harlow be afflicted with seasonal allergies as well?

Time to find out, and J took Harlow to the vet for a check on that last Saturday morning. Dr. E checked him over and did indeed note that poor Harlow has a lot of congestion in his head; his chest, though, was mercifully very clear. She conceded it could be seasonal allergies and recommended we try to give Harlow a half tab of Benedryl daily to see if that would help. She also suggested we do another pre-emptive course of oral antibiotics because of how congested Harlow sounded. J took the scrip but decided we'd hold off on starting it until one of us noticed discolored nasal discharge from Harlow.

It didn't take long. Yesterday afternoon Harlow had a sneezing fit and a big old nasty grayish yellow loogie landed on my soda can. So much for drinking that soda, LOL, and so much for keeping Harlow off the antibiotics. He started the ClinDrops last night at dinner time; he's on a two-week course of that now. Last night we also noted that the watery eye was especially watery again, so we decided to resume the antibiotic eyedrops for a handful of days as well to get that under control again.

Poor fella--epilepsy, recurrent herpes flares, and seasonal allergies! He's our Special Kitty now...Ever so glad he takes all his meds like a total champ! :)