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Oh, my aching kitty
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Oh, my aching kitty I'm supposed to be enjoying what was to be an uneventful week before what may or may not be "the storm." It just seems as though one or the other "old lady" around here keeps getting sick ...since the last post, AuntiE has been sick twice (and one of those two times was "emergency room" level "sick") and has had two falls that could have been quite serious (luckily they weren't, but make no mistake: it was only by sheer luck that they weren't). Next week we have to do another bone-marrow biopsy and find out what the "state of the cancer" is with Mom. I'm trying not to think about it too much, but we've always thought the worst and she's invariably been much better than expected. Although I'm certainly hoping that will be the case this time, I also think there are only so many times that sort of thing happens (not to mention the host of mitigating problems we are currently having that weren't here before). This started out being the first week since February that there wasn't at least one doctor related event on my calendar (actually, probably closer to two). BUT, then comes the latest: The cat. More specifically, Mom's kitty that is about 12 years old. I'd been saying for a while that I thought we needed to take her in to see the vet; she's quite the kitty-cat ...at her age, and she's always been very playful and more than a little hyperactive. Her regular kitty-food brand changed formulations (or at least, that's when I first started noticing the change), and her appetite suddenly jumped up wildly. Her litter box began filling up three times faster than usual and she was eating like a ...but she was LOSING weight. Of everything that was going on, it was the weight loss that was the big red flag of course. Apparently I'm the one gaining weight from all the cat's overindulgence and something needs to be done about it! I was talking to my sister one afternoon and she mentioned taking their newer pup in to see their vet of nearly 20 years, and while it was fresh in my mind I called and made an appointment for the cat as soon as I got of the phone with her. I'd been procrastinating for a while on the issue, but not all that bad. I really like this vet ...I've been using him for about 5 years for the muttifer and have been nothing but impressed. My Mom had used him for some time as well ...we know him and really like him. He's simply never given any reason not to think the world of him. Back to the kitty though ...we took her in, the doc did a check-over, performed blood tests and the culprit was a tiny little cyst on her thyroid causing hyper-thyroidism. All the symptoms fit; even a few that I hadn't really taken note of, but in hindsight was able to say "Oh yeah ...that TOO!" To give you an idea, on her previous visit she weighed 8 pounds ...the diagnostic visit she weight 5.8 pounds. That's a pretty dramatic weight loss for such a tiny little thing to begin with. Her heart-rate was around 250bpm ...kinda up there (although I'm still not convinced it may not have been partially due to being at the VET). Treatment (ugh): pills ...twice a day (double ugh). Because nothing says "I love my pet" like cramming pills down their throat twice a day. This is a first for Mom's kitty but I've had cat's in the past and a week or two of pills is NO fun at all. This stuff: erm ...rest of her life. I'm already having doubts, and I haven't even started yet. Researching kevlar may be in my future (suits of iron are sooo "yesterday"). SO ...I started her on the meds, and this was no small thing. The vet sent us some nifty little "pill pockets" to wrap the pills in and initially it was great ...kitty-cat wolfed down the pills with no issue. Note the use of the word "initially" there ...after a week or so, she started to smell a rat or something and decided she didn't much care for the pockets anymore (or so I thought) and I had to resort to a bit more drastic means: making her take the pills. I made a few minor discoveries while she and I "worked to achieve an understanding (hah! ...not quite the terminology the cat would use, I'm sure)." First was that the pill pockets were a little bit too big for such a tiny cat ...when she still had the appetite of a , she wolfed them down eagerly. Unfortunately the gradually started the transformation to a mule, and I sort of missed out on putting two and two together until she began vomiting like mad for the first couple of days and then just quit eating altogether. ("she began vomiting like mad for the first couple of days and then just quit eating" ...sorry for the random "Airplane" reference that probably nobody will get anyway) I quit giving her the pills and called the vet to ask if maybe the dosage was too high and he said to cut back to a single pill a day. Once her appetite started coming back again (and I had to switch to a canned food even then), I went to a single pill a day. She started being much better about taking the pill if only given once a day (I only had one time that she bit into the pill and spit half of it out), I was a bit happier about only having to herd the cat once a day. I guess the muttifer missed out on feeling superior one extra time a day, but even he seemed mostly indifferent. The other kinda sad part of the whole story is that the generally playful, energetic kitty became lethargic ...no longer played with her toys and seemed generally "blah." This is the part that initially (and still to some extent) gives me a bit of "crisis of conscience." I had a very happy kitty ...playful, energetic, affectionate (but not overly so), and now I'm giving her medicine that is by all appearances, taking all that away. I looked around online a bit (my search criterea based on "should I even treat my cat for hyperthyroidism?" ...one thing I've learned is that if I'm asking it, invariably somebody else somewhere will have had the same concern) and found an article by a veterinarian that was very good and addressed all my concerns quite well. Not treating leads to organ failure and a host of secondary issues that become more and more unpleasant over time. In fact, if I had waited much longer to have taken her in, the odds are quite strong that I'd have been bringing her in for more serious stuff. Around the end of last week things started sliding down an all too familiar path once again. First I started noticing kitty vomit (isn't that the name of a band?) in small amounts, then all over ...then she quit eating altogether (again). I took her back to the vet and he said he was completely mystified because it was such a "textbook case" of hyperthyroidism he wasn't sure what to do except start from scratch and do all the bloodwork over again and see what it showed. He gave her an injection to stop the vomitting, and yet more pills to easy the troubled tummy. He said he'd never seen anything quite like this (remember this one for later). Okay ...I'm down with somebody who can admit they don't know and have a lot of respect for that. What I wasn't quite down for was the call that came in about the blood work. vet: Yep ...thyroid is definitely the issue, and one pill a day isn't cutting it either; the thyroid numbers are still way too high. We needed to up the dosage to two pills a day again. me: (thinking this very loudly) ...you mean the pills that by all appearances, seem to be damn near killing her?!? Umm ...yeah okay, but if the pills are making her THIS sick, what are we to do about the fact that she keeps throwing up and won't eat? vet: Well, the pills for her tummy should stop the throwing up, but as for the loss of appetite: you'll just need to force feed her. me: Umm ...force feed?! REALLY?! ...you do realize that the original reason I brought her in was because she was overeating (while still losing weight). vet: Well, the side effects should only last for a month or so before her body adjusts to it, but it's really important that she take the meds even if she's vomiting half of it up. I really have to keep in mind that this guy is someone my family has used for (literally) decades, because forcing the family pet to do something that not only is going to make her sick, but may be something I'll have to do for the rest of her life isn't exactly something I'd want to do to my worst enemy (I might consider it for the crack team of<b> writers </font></b>for "24" though). Okay ...I get off the phone with the vet feeling a little bit less than thrilled about the whole situation. First step for me is to try to get a little bit more information. As I said above, the odds are pretty good that if I'm questioning it ...somebody else has probably asked the same thing somewhere down the line. The first step was looking at the two medications, and what the possible side effects are. The very first search: common side effects include vomiting, loss of appetite and lethargy (go back up to the "I've never seen anything like it" remark, and I'm suddenly thinking that factoring in his inability to even consider that the cat's overeating issue might be related to my own weight gain, that this guy might be a quack!). The second medication I'm not sure about still, because it's for the high pulse which is common to hyperthyroidism, which is treated by the first medication. The second medication appears to be redundant. I also found a host of sites extolling the virtues of the "in the short-term = expensive as hell" radiation treatment that has the benefit of being a one time only, no medications, no long-term commitment with over a 95% success rate. The vet barely mentioned it, but at least he DID mention it. On the web, just about everyone said that if you can afford it, to go that route. In the plus column for the medication though, most everyone said that the side-effects dissipate reasonably fast (within three months). In the minus column for my vet, almost across the board, everyone said if they got the harsh effects, to lower the dosage drastically and slowly work your way up to the full dosage over a period of weeks (and not a single article/vet called for "force feeding until they got over it"). I've called the (sole) place that does the radiation treatment and got an estimate. Not pretty but not too horribly ugly either. If I have to repeat the bills for the last 30 days more than once a year, the radiological option would pay for itself fairly quickly. ...and I haven't even priced the kevlar suit of armor and the accumulation of hard feelings (or the possibility of being smothered in my sleep) by the cat. I called the vet and he said he'll send over some literature on the radio-iodine option and send a referral to see if he can get us a discount if we go that route (gotta admit that part is pretty cool of him), so we'll see. Sad as it is to admit, if it was the muttifer I'd have scheduled it already. Mom seems to like the radiation option too though (even though it's not her running the assassination risk), so I guess we'll see. As for the blog title ...I REALLY considered something different, but given the location ...what the hell! 
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