By Wednesday we'd sort of had it with what the Keppra (we suspected that that was it) was doing to Cassie. She was incontinent almost all the time. She slept all day -- was even difficult to arouse to take her pills. And she had switched over to being indifferent to food.
We called our vet, who was out for the day. So, we called the neurologist around 10am and her assistant told her that she (the neurologist) was returning calls and we should get one soon.
OK, doctors work a long day. And, we weren't actually paying her for the advice. She returned the call around 6pm. Told us that it was OK to cut the Keppra dosage in half, from 125mg 3x/day. That made all the difference in the world. By Thursday PM Cassie was pretty much back to normal.
Ironically, on each of the past 2 Wednesdays we thought Cassie was just about dead. But, she continues to surprise us with her "I'm not dead yet" attitude (and recovery from over medicating!)
The neurologist also told us that if the Keppra didn't work "we'd find another med" -- we love that we have doctors who are right alongside us, working to keep Cassie alive, while not imposing their values on us (10 years ago we had another vet who was too much a 'scientist' -- felt like a 6 Million Dollar Man episode)
Normal to us means we can look in her eyes and see "Cassie". She's still somewhat incontinent but not continuously so. And when we're outside she'll occasionally trot off to bark at another dog in the distance. And she'll willingly (most of the time) go over to the grass to go to the bathroom. All in all a much better state to have her in.
Maxine and I'd agreed that the full Keppra dosage had Cassie so stoned (and incontinent) that we didn't particularly want to keep her going if that was going to be it. So, we're willingly taking the risk of seizures (I liken the seizure meds to a squelch on a CB radio) to have our little dog back for as long as we can have her...
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