Back from the Vet

The news is worrisome. There are two leisions on Kona’s liver. And they both look very different from each other. The first one is very clear. The vet doesn’t think its cancer, but perhaps scarring from the meds or he might have thrown a blood clot during one of his seizures. The other is not nearly as clearly defined and the vet really isn’t sure what is going on. One of his liver enzymes is still very elevated. They are sending out a special panel of blood work to get some more definitive answers as to what might be causing the elevation in his liver enzymes. Depending upon what comes back, they might want to do a liver biopsy on him. We are starting potasium bromide tonight. The sooner we can get that into his system the sooner we can taper off the phenobarbitol, which is probably what is causing his liver to act the way it is. However, he will probably go through the “break-in” period with the side effects, which will cause him to be sedated and shaky on his feet. I hate watching that, it is so sad, but it does get better. He has been on phenobarb for 5 years or so, and it can be toxic to the liver. When he first went on it, the vet said that it would probably shorten his life. He’s almost ten and I really want a few more years with him. In one way, the barf fest the last week was probably a really good thing because it brought to light the fact that his liver wasn’t doing too well. We might have gone a while longer before we found out and his liver could have been more damaged. {sigh}

See more progress on: Do a better job of managing Kona's seizures