Greetings from Bumblebee!

Hello there interwebz. Back from the void to fill all six of you in on the happenings!

Lucas and I are in Arizona again and having a pleasant time. The last time we were out here, I was not in the best spot and needed some help and my friend Jake said, “come on out man – I got room.”  This time ol’ Jake called up and asked if I could come back out and help him, so I did.

The main concern I had was finding a decent vet for Lucas, and Jake did some great advance work on that front. I took Lucas in to meet the new team, our East Coast vet sent over all the records and lab work and stuff, and we had a long talk and took a bunch of blood. Lucas was fine on the trip out, and was happy to see Jake and remembered many of the places we used to go. But, he started having some “accidents”. I don’t mind the clean-up, I just feel bad for the guy. He had maybe 4 between mid-October and mid-January. Then he had 4 in as many weeks.

This team recommended a three pronged approach for Lucas.

1) We are phasing him off of the Phenobarbital. He has been on that since May of 2004 and started on it to control seizures. But he has not had a seizure in a very long time, and his dosage is super low. If there are issues, we can start him back on it.

2) We started him on Trilostane to combat the Cushings’ disease directly. My intricate knowledge of both the disease and the treatment is that this drug is gonna get all up in there and put the flim flam on the sally.

3) We started him on Soloxine as a supplement for his thyroid.

Monday, 2/20, we started the new meds and cut his phenobarb in half. Next week we cut the pheno in half again, and then stop it. It is hard to say too much after just one week, but these are the results so far:

His appetite is still good.

He is drinking less water (the bowl is not even empty when I get up to take him out at 5:30 AM) and peeing less often and in smaller quantities.

He has not been hyperactive or lethargic (both possible side effects?!?), but he has gone on two hikes of about 3 miles each and one other longer than usual walk.

We are hopeful that he will continue to show some further signs of improvement. But, since he did not seem to be in pain, just being able to get through life without peeing on himself will be a huge improvement in his quality of life.

That’s it for now. Howdy from PV.