I would like to ask for everyone's prayers today.

Last September I was contacted by a local rescue to take in a kitten who they thought had CH (cerebral hypoplasia). When I got him he was just over 1 lb (at 3.5 months) and he was sick. He had his first seizure and it turned out that he had an URI and an ear infection. He had one more seizure during the month he was on anti-biotics. He was fine until about 2 weeks ago when he developed another URI. I took him to the vet on Dec 24 and he was put on Azithromycin, but that wasn't working. On Jan 2, I took him back to the vet and he was put on Orbax. Saturday morning he had a seizure, so I took him back to the vet and he was given an injection of Convenia (long acting anti-biotic) and it seemed to be working. Then Sunday night he started seizing again. Between Sunday night and Monday supper he had 7 seizures. The last night he had a cluster seizure (meaning that he couldn't stop seizing). I took him to the emergency very about 10 minutes from my home. They were able to stop the seizing by sedating him.

I talked with the vet this morning and they are starting to do some preliminary diagnostics on him. None of the options are particularly good but some are better than others:
  • It could be an infection that has passed into his brain
  • It could be a liver shunt
  • It could be a brain abnormality (not CH)


He is still sedated, with low blood pressure and sugar, and high liver results. They say this maybe pointing to a liver shunt, but this is a REALLY rare condition in cats (especially this young). But it is treatable with medical management and surgery (when he is bigger). They will do an abdominal ultrasound to determine if this is the case.

If he has a brain infection, he isn't strong enough right now for them to do a spinal tap, but he could be started on other anti-biotics that will pass through into the brain.

If he has an abnormality other than CH the only thing I might be able to do is put him on seizure meds. But if he has cluster seizures I am not sure I would want to do that.