10-20-11 - 20 days since CK update

As I write this.. Max is currently in the cat bed trying digging through the cats blanket and flipping his catnip toys around looking for food... He's been doing all sorts of stuff today when he's not completely zonked out. He has 2 speeds today.. GO and SLEEP SOUNDLY.  Yesterday was Max's first day without any prednisone. He is weaning down to 10mg every other day.  I was a little nervous but he's doing great. No eye twitching, no head tilting, no circling, both eyes are blinking together.  He's a little wobbly - almost like he's light-headed, but I suppose if I had some tumors in my brain "vaporized" I might be a little light-headed too.  That's also supposed to be a side effect of his anti-seizure medicine too.  (He is taking 100mg one time/ day currently.  He was originally prescribed 200mg 2x day, but he had completely lost his appetite, and wasn't himself at all. (Max had never had a seizure before CK, and has only had 1 since, and it lasted about 1 minute and 20 seconds. That's not to say we're out of the danger zone by any means.  When he did have the seizure it was after we went for a walk and was within the first week after cyberknife so may have been too soon.  One thing I did notice when he had the seizure was that the tip of his tongue was a very deep red and the rest of his tongue was a light pink. I'd never seen that color in anyone's tongue before. For those who know Chinese Medicine, they know that a lot of the diagnosis is done by the tongue. I mentioned the colors to our holistic vet here and she said that it was an interesting observation because the tip of the tongue is tied to the "Mansion" or the brain / heart.. and obviously the red means heat - so essentially the brain was overheating... and it shorted out and he had a seizure.  So anytime I see what could possibly look like that color scheme he will get a seizure pill. )

So.. back to today... Max slept really soundly last night and most of the morning. I can tell he's getting a little bored but he doesn't seem to want to leave the house. He will come out and sit in the driveway, but he won't get in the car if I want to take him for a ride to the park. He will sit in the garage if I try to take him for a walk up the road with the rest of the gang and eventually just go back in the house... so I think he may know his limits, or he may be worried something will happen when he's away from home.  He has the energy to run all over the front yard looking for me though. I also caught him exploring the woodpile today, and he even ran all the way around the house and up a flight of 12 stairs onto the back deck looking for me.. This wasn't a walk - it was a RUN! He had to go potty after dinner and then decided to walk across the street and look in the woods, but when I tried to get him to walk up the street, he ran all the way back down the driveway and into the garage.. yes ran - not walked!  I went into the front yard and he followed me around in there while I cleaned up.. Then he's been very alert and active all evening!  Maybe it's the cooler weather? (high today in the mid 60's). He barked and ran up to us wagging his tail with the rest of the dogs when we came home from dinner and pushed his way up to get a hug and snuggle!

He still can't hear very well and I"m not sure his sight is 100% (he ran into the sliding glass door) and he still can be a little wobbly - like he's drunk and walking - on occasion - but not all the time.    But he's still doing well, and his nose is working extremely well, and he's happy and I'm seeing a consistency  that we weren't seeing before CK.  I'm looking forward to when Max is not so tired, but all the humans who I've heard from who have had CK say they are exhausted for a few months after... so I'm sure this is all normal.