My Cat Had Acupuncture

My cat had acupuncture.

Yes, you read that correctly.

My cat had acupuncture.

Jerri went back to the neurologist on Thursday. (If you need to catch up, read my last post.)  We get there and I tell the resident that the medicine they gave her (Lyrica/Pregablin) really didn't do much for her. Honestly, we feel like she's been pretty bad in the past few weeks. We're almost at the point where if she's awake, she's having episodes and if she's asleep, she doesn't. We've been locking her up a lot overnight because she keeps us awake a good portion of the night having episodes. We feel bad locking her up, but it's the only way we don't hear her. So, I gave the guy my speal and off he took Jerri to get looked at.

45 minutes later (!) they brought her back with the neurologist. And he informed me that he did a 20 minute electrical acupuncture session with her and he thought she may have liked it!  He said she "complained" while he was feeling for where to put the needles, but was totally fine with the needles going in. And he said she actually relaxed quite a bit during it. Go figure.

So our game plan is to try a new medicine with her. Something more similar to Prozac (which helped decrease the number of episodes) but with less side effects. It's called Buspar. And good news-the pharmacy already called me and I should have it next week I'm guessing. In the meantime, he wants me to watch her and see if the acupuncture did anything for her. Here it is Saturday night so it's been 2 days and really there hasn't been much change to her unfortunately. He did say we could do monthly acupuncture with her if it worked.

The bad news? If this medicine doesn't work, then he's thinking of doing an MRI and spinal tap on her to see if something else is going on that we're missing. My thoughts....cha-ching! How much will this cost? I hate to sound like a bitch heartless, but how much do you spend on an animal before you say enough is enough? Yes, she's our pet. Yes, we love her. Yes, we want to help her. But...she's a cat. We got her for free. We've already spent a lot of money on her in the past 2 months trying to figure this whole thing out. I just hope it's a decision that we don't have to make.

Please, keep your fingers and toes crossed that this medicine works for her!

In regular news, Easter is tomorrow and Avery is on Spring break. She started it with a bang by getting strep throat!  Here's to everyone getting and staying healthy!

Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome (FHS)

I know I've been MIA for awhile now.

I keep debating whether or not to keep this going.

Life has been busy-the holidays followed by Cassie's birthday followed by me taking a big test for my job (which meant studying since December in any free time I have). Throw in a crazy cat (you'll see what I mean) and 2 kids and that's been life the past few months. Things have been pretty status quo for the most part I guess which is why I haven't really updated much. Not to mention I just don't feel like taking the time to do it! Haha!

But I thought this was worthy of a post....mainly to maybe help someone else out there going through the same thing as us.

So around the second week in January on a Friday night, I was on the couch studying and our cat, Jerri, was in the room with me. All of a sudden, she growled, hissed and ran around the room. This cat only hisses and growls when another cat is outside. Or if we really piss her off. I went and told Gabe what she did and he remarked that she had done the same thing the night before. About 10mins later, she did it again.

Saturday morning we wake up and she did it again. We called the vet and they got us in around 3pm. Everything checked out normal and they drew some blood to see if there were any answers there.

Saturday night was terrible. Gabe and I literally slept for 2 hours. All Jerri did was hiss, growl and run around the house. If she wasn't sleeping, she was having these episodes repeatedly. The worst part was cats are quiet sometimes so we wouldn't hear her come in our room and then from under the bed you'd hear this loud growl/hiss and it would scare the crap out of you!  Gabe ended up video taping her around 4am  so we had evidence of what was going on. From that, we figured out that she was hissing and growling at her tail and then would try to attack it and run away from it.

Monday we heard from the vet that all of her bloodwork came back normal. I told her about the tail involvement so she wanted us to bring Jerri back on Tuesday to have her anal glands checked. So Gabe took her in and all was normal. The decision was made to try a pain reliever to see if anything improved. So maybe Wednesday that week we started that for 3-4 days and there was no improvement. (And giving a cat pills is terrible-they are really good at spitting them out. Repeatedly.)

The episodes kept happening and there were nights we had to lock Jerri in the basement so that she didn't keep us up all night long. They weren't as bad as that first night (thankfully!) but she was still doing them for hours at a time sometimes!

Since the pain reliever didn't help, the vet suggested trying Fluoxetine (Prozac) to see if that would help. She also suggested a consult with a cat neurologist (who even knew those existed?!).  We called the neurologist and since the guy travels in from Cornell, we were put on a wait list for March (yep, 2 months away)-and we weren't even guaranteed an appointment then!  So we started the Prozac out for a 2 week trial.

The Prozac did pretty well at controlling Jerri's episodes. Most days she was only doing it once or twice which was a huge improvement. However, the Prozac made her a not-so-nice cat. She wouldn't come within a 5 foot radius of us. No sitting on our laps or sleeping in our bed. If you tried to pet her, she'd swat at you and hiss. She just wasn't our usual Jerri. Just before the two weeks was up, we decided to stop giving her the Prozac. It was helping in one way, but harming her in another. It just wasn't right. We called her vet and told her about the Prozac and she was fine with us stopping it. Now we just had to wait for the neurologist appointment, which could be another month or two from now.

About a week after we stopped her meds, the neurologist office called and had a cancellation! Hooray! So we took Jerri to see him. They spent about 45 minutes with her in another room doing all sorts of tests with her. Afterwards, we met with the doctor to go over his results/findings. He told us that she seemed normal except that along her spine and tail, her skin is hypersensitive. Whenever he touched her there, the skin all over her back would "jump". We agreed, as Jerri really doesn't like being touched on her back or tail.

So he gave us a diagnosis of Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome. Unfortunately, it's a syndrome so they don't know exactly what causes it. He described it as Jerri experiencing some sort of pain (could be a tingly feeling, a burning sensation, an itching sensation-they are all sent to the brain via pain receptors) on her tail area, which is causing her to have these episodes. He suggested trying a different medication (Lyrica/Pregabalin) to see how she responds to it. He said it may take several medications to control it and it could take trying different doses as well. Sounds like a lot of trial and error.   The medication has to be compounded at a vet pharmacy in AZ too. So, we got her prescription sent and scheduled another follow up with him at the end of March.

Well, the medication process took quite awhile. The one he prescribed is a controlled substance so it had to get delivered to the pharmacy via snail mail. Then get made and shipped to us. It took 2 weeks for all of that to happen. So over the course of those 2 weeks, Jerri's body rid itself of all of the other medications we tried. During this time, her episodes became more numerous again, especially in the evening.

Her medicine finally came and we ordered it as a liquid this time, hoping it would be easier to give her. The bad thing? She has to take it twice a day. I will say, the liquid is way easier than the pills were though because she hasn't figured out how to spit it out. Yet. I think as of now, she's been on the medicine almost 2 weeks. Honestly, I don't think it's working. She is still having quite a bit of episodes and we haven't seen a decrease in number at all. She is still acting like herself which is good. She's back to coming around us and sitting on our laps a lot which is good. She seems "normal" in that respect. So, she sees the neurologist again in about 3 weeks. She'll be due for a medicine refill before then, which I don't know if we'll refill it or not. It's a lot of money to spend if it's not doing anything for her. Unless this medicine just takes awhile to kick in, which may be the case. Right now, we're just going day by day until her next appointment. Hopefully then we'll get some more answers!

Fall Fun!

On Sunday we went to The Garden Factory for their fun fall weekends that they have. We've been there before for their holiday weekends, but never for fall...so we decided to check it out.

Cassandra was ready to go in her pumpkin hat!

They had tons of stuff to do there! It seemed like they had less rides than in the winter, but at the same time it seemed bigger in size and they had more stuff to do than in winter as well.

They had some cat adoption place there and Avery was loving the kittens-I think she was playing with them for at least a half hour! And they had one that looked like a baby Jerri as well!

Avery and I as ghosts:

After the kittens, she was ready for some rides!

First up? The carousel!

After she went on I was walking with her and we heard "Avery! Avery!" and we turned around to see her BFF Josie there with her grandparents!! They were so excited to see each other!

Avery and Josie

They went on the carousel again together and then went into the bounce house. Then they went and checked out the petting farm:

bunnies

Baby pigs-they were so, so small!

Then it was time for Josie to leave so we got in line for some ice cream!

And then Avery and I went down the big slide (which was very fast by the way!):

Then it was Daddy's turn:

Avery won a stuffed whale and Cassandra was lovin' it to pieces-she kept giving it hugs:

After we went down the slide a few more times, we headed to Gabe's parents' house (they had met us at Garden Factory). I put Cassandra down for a nap since she didn't sleep there (silly nosy girl!). I took a pic of her sleeping...she's so sweet!

We had dinner, then headed home. After I put Cassandra to bed, I hit up the store for grocery shopping. It was a very busy but very fun day!

A Big, Fat Catch Up Post

I seriously had about 5 posts drafted...nothing written, just posts I wanted to write. Yeah, those were from 2 weeks ago! And I had probably another 5 I could have started as well. It would have taken me at least 2 weeks to get photos uploaded and get the posts written, so today I said screw it and am just putting everything into one huge post and being done with it. That way, I'll be caught up to today so I'm not back posting for the rest of my life (like I normally do!). So, this post will be extremely random, but it'll get us all caught up to life right now!

Let's see....

Cassandra had her first ride in the stroller without her carseat! I think she loved it!

My Dad and Gabe's Dad have birthdays a few days apart (and so do our Moms...funny huh?!) so we had a birthday weekend!  Saturday (the 6th-which is my Dad's b-day) my Dad came out for a visit. We hung out awhile then went out for a BBQ lunch (yum!). After lunch, we came back to the house for some delicious cupcakes!  We sang of course!

And Miss Cassandra had her first taste of frosting! I'm not sure what she thought of it!

Sunday (the 7th), we went to my in-laws' house to celebrate our other Dad's birthday with all of the Aunts and Uncles!  Of course I brought my camera and forgot to take photos! But I did take a few of Cassandra all dressed up and ready to party!

sporting baby legs for the first time!

This face kills me!

One morning last week when I was home with the kids, they were really into Jerri (when are they not?!) and Jerri was actually coming around a lot and laying down near the kids, etc. Avery was like "Mommy! Take a picture of us with Jerri!"  Of course when I try doing that, it's impossible! It's hard enough getting 2 kids to look at you...throw in a cat and forget it!

What is Cassandra's face? She's like "look at me!"

Very excited about the cat!

Over this past weekend, we went to Buffalo on Saturday for the day. It had been at least a month since we were last there so we were due for a visit!

Cass of course loved the dog!

And again trying to get 2 kids to look at the camera was a joke! But I wanted a picture because their shirts match! Yes, the only other thing we have that matches for them! 

Cassandra sat at the table with us for the first time! I think she enjoyed it! She was sort of all over the place in it though, but oh well! It got the job done!

And I had to get a shot of me and my baby girl....

I could bite that face it's so cute!

This week has been busy-I picked up an extra day at work so I worked M-W. Yeah, nothing gets accomplished on work days! Hence the big, fat catch up post! Halloween events are-a-comin'! Stay tuned!

Moving Day!

So yesterday was the big day....moving day!

Our POD was supposed to be picked up at 8:30am and we were woken up at 7:45am by them! Nice and early!

Gabe's Dad showed up around 9am to take Avery for the day-we didn't want her to be in the way of the movers and this way Gabe and I could get some stuff done while she was gone.

Before she left, we took a family photo outside of the old house:

The movers showed up around 9:15am and got right to work. We had one truck and three guys and man, did they hussle! We were only going to have them take the "big" items (99% furniture), but we ended up having them take some boxes too because they moved so darn fast! They had all of our furniture packed up in just over an hour-it was amazing!

Here's the truck in our driveway:

I forget what time they completely finished packing up, but I'd say it was in under 2 hours easily. Then we headed to the new house:

And they were just as quick to unload! Basically the entire job was done by 1pm-so about 4 hours or so, which was way faster than we expected.

Once they left, Gabe and I took my car and headed back to the old house-we stopped at Wendy's for lunch then went back and packed up my car. We came back to the new house and got a few things arranged. Then we took both cars back to the old house and did another big load. Gabe took the cat and I was on Avery duty.

I went to my in-laws to get her around 4:30 or so. She seemed excited to go see Daddy and Jerri the cat at the new house.

We got home (Gabe had been home at least an hour with the cat) and I asked how the cat was doing. Gabe said "she's laying in the box of china." Somehow she wiggled herself into the box (which was closed) and there she stayed for about two hours! Avery was loving it because Jerri was too afraid to move so Avery got to pet her all she wanted! Here she is giving her kisses:

Silly cat!

Gabe finally took the cat out of the box to see what she would do. Anytime we'd leave the room, the cat would meow like crazy! We had the door from the house to the garage open and Jerri went and hid under Gabe's car for a long time. I went out there and she came up to me and I petted her a very long time. That seemed to calm her down and she slowly followed me back into the house. She did keep meowing a lot and I was paranoid that she was going to keep us up all night.

Avery on the other hand did great-she went up and saw her bedroom all set up and just grinned from ear to ear saying "I love my new room!" She went to bed super easily-it was a piece of cake! Here I thought Avery would have a tough time and Jerri was the "problem child".

I'm happy to report that the cat calmed down enough to sleep with us at night and really was quiet for the most part-thank God!

Overall it was a good day-busy, but good!

Now the fun of unpacking begins!

Buffalo Play Date

Yesterday, Avery and I made a trip to Buffalo for the day. My main reason to go was to see my Grandfather one last time before he heads back to Vegas on the 7th. I knew the holiday weekend was going to be busy and we wouldn't make it to Buffalo then so yesterday was my last chance to get there and see him.

Before Grandpa arrived, Avery had to check out a new toy Grandma picked up for her! She had a lot of fun with it!

She liked putting her rings in the front part of the car:

Grandpa came by for a few hours for lunch-it was a nice visit. I think he's a little sad about going home.

Avery had fun climbing on my Mom and grabbing her nose!

I lucked out that a few of my friends are teachers and are now off for the summer. They happened to not have any plans yesterday, so we had a little playdate! Jessica and Connor, and Megan and Noah came by and the kids got to play for a few hours....it was a lot of fun!
Avery and Connor checking out the cat:

Avery and Connor were funny with the toys-whatever one of them had, the other one wanted it. Yet if they were both toyless, they could have cared less about what was around! They were really "fighting" over this stick for awhile:

On the move:

Noah laughing at the xylophone:

Avery and Noah:

We kept trying to get all 3 of them in one picture-which was a joke! This was the closest we got...Jessica brought along some animal crackers and you would have thought it was feeding time at the zoo!

Crawling!

Avery is officially a crawler now! A few weeks ago she started the army crawl and was all over the place with that. A few days ago she started doing some real crawling "steps" and now that's all she pretty much does! When she starts to get tired, she'll resort to the army crawl, but not too much anymore. When we get back from our trip to Florida (we leave in 2 days! Eek!) we'll really have to start babyproofing the house!

Yesterday she really started going after Jerri-it was pretty funny. Every time she would make it to her, Jerri would run away and the fun would start all over! I tried taping it, but it didn't come out very well so instead you'll have to settle for this little clip:
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End of the Busy Week

So my busy week continued into a busy weekend.

Friday night was quiet after work-put the baby to bed and just caught up on some TV (we are WAY behind on things).

Saturday we had a playdate with 2 girls from Avery's daycare. We got together with them about a month ago or so and yesterday we got together with them again. It was a lot of fun and it's fun seeing how much the girls grow! We had a nice brunch-quiche, fruit salad, muffins and cookies and the girls had fun playing together. We were there about 2 hours then they were all ready for naps!
Here they are-Josie (6.5mos-she's 5 days older than Avery), Amelia (10mos), and Avery:

Amelia giving Avery a love tap:


When I got home, Avery went down for a nap and I ran to Wegman's then to JCPenney's to pick up Avery's pictures we had done. When I got home, about 15min. later Megan, Todd, and Noah arrived for a visit! The kids got to visit a bit and we had some pizza and wings for dinner. Avery went to bed and they stayed awhile longer before heading out. I stupidly forgot to take pictures of the kids-you just get to busy and into visiting that it totally slipped my mind. Noah has sprouted a tooth though and is getting so big!
Jerri was enjoying her new favorite place by the heat vent:

This morning my Dad came out for a visit. When we were in Buffalo last weekend we didn't get to see him since I wasn't feeling well so he came out today to see us which was nice. I made a nice breakfast (recipe to come!) so we ate while Avery napped. Then he got in some quality visiting time with her which was nice!
Here's Grandpa feeding Avery for the first time! She did really well!


My Dad stayed a few hours and Avery went down for nap #2. I'm catching up on here and just relaxing a bit before she wakes up.

This coming week will be a little less chaotic. Gabe's parents are gone on vacation so I'm only working one day this week when Avery goes to daycare. Since I worked a full week last week, they nicely counted those days for this week so I could swing it. So it's like a vacation for me this week which will be great! And we don't have much planned either which is even better!

Speaking of teeth....I think I can see Avery's bottom teeth. I swear I've caught glimpses of something white in her gums. When I really try to look, she fights me so it's hard to tell, but I swear I see something. I don't feel them yet, but they might be ready to pop out one of these days. I'll keep ya posted!