Tribulations

Hello, all!

I'm sorry to have continued to be so absent - I can't believe it's October 14th already!  We've had some trouble with one of our cats, so he's generally been the focus here at the Handyverger household.  You see...

Lancelot came to us in April, and he was initially a very fearful kitty, but his reaction to fear was aggression.  We gave him lots of time and love, and even after a month, he hadn't gotten much better.  Our poor little guy was so miserable!  So in May, we started him on an antidepressant, at the recommendation of our vet.

It definitely helped, and Lancelot began to come out of his shell.  He and our alpha cat, Karma, still don't get along, so we've been continuing to do a lot of work introducing them - and separating them as necessary.

Lance explores our friends' baby carrier.  

Or, "My new bed," as he likes to call it.

In August, Lancelot scared us by having a seizure.  Mr. Handyverger was working in his office, and he heard a loud thump.  When he came into the dining room, he found Lancelot in the middle of a seizure.  It stopped, Lance had an emergency trip to the vet (who stayed past closing on a Friday to take care of him), and then he had blood work the next day.  Almost everything came back normal.  Except one result that suggested he might have FIP (feline infectious peritonitis) - or he'd been exposed to the virus that causes it.  This nasty little virus normally just causes a stomach bug for cats, but in some cats, it hides in some of their white blood cells, then mutates to make the cells start attacking the cat's body.  It's one of the Big Bads of cat diseases.  There is no cure.  There is only supportive treatment, and it is ultimately fatal - and we lost a cat to it six years ago.  The test only showed that he'd been exposed to the virus, but we were on high alert.

Lancelot did fine until the end of September, while I was in Alaska.  He had another seizure then.  And he had a third on October 4th.  We were pretty sure it was "just" epilepsy, but it could have been quite a few other things - liver disease, some infectious disease infecting his brain, a structural abnormality, a tumor... that's the scary list.

So last Monday we took little Lancelot to the neurologist.  He was not a happy kitty, so instead of doing the work-up bit by bit, and bringing him in multiple times, we did the whole thing at once.  Lancelot had a liver work-up, including a pre- and post-fed blood test.  He had a spinal tap.  He had an MRI.

Lance snuggled up in blankets between procedures, while his anesthesia wore off.

So that was Monday.  Monday night, we came home and Lance was doing great - until the last of the anesthesia wore off, and he started feeling miserable.  He went and sat in the litterbox - which he never does.  Not just used it - sat in it.  Poor kitty.  After a panicked call to the hospital where his procedures were done, we decided to wait it out, since it probably was just the anesthesia.  We moved Lance to our bed, turned the lights out and let him rest.  It was a long, scary night, but he was back to himself by morning.

Lance stalking moths.  Moths are awesome. 

And yummy.

And later in the day Tuesday, the neurologist called with the good news that everything came back normal - it really is "just" epilepsy.  We started him on medicine Wednesday, and he seems to be doing just fine.  And that's the story of why I've been absent. I hope to have a few posts in the upcoming week, now that we're sure what's going on with our boy.  Thanks for understanding!

Yes.  That's an inhaler in the background.  For one of our other cats.  

And pills.  For another cat.  Aren't cats supposed to be easy? ;)