Tomorrow Patches goes in to her vet for her three-month post-thyroid-treatment check.
She’s looking good and getting fat.
Her fur is luxurious, bright and beautiful.
She looks healthier than a sixteen year old cat has any right to look.
I’m a little concerned that she may remain hypothyroid (the opposite of what she was when she almost died in December), but that’s correctable with a daily pill. I take one myself for an underactive thyroid.
Her other problem is a too-frequent bit of coughing. I think whatever is in her throat (whether it’s a paralyzed epiglottis or something else) causes her to collect phlegm or liquid in that spot, so she has to cough some to clear it out.
If it isn’t a big deal, I won’t have the vet go after it, because knocking her out for surgery at her age could be dicey. But of course if it gets any worse, I’ll have to do something… The coughing doesn’t upset her, and it’s very brief.
Hopefully all of her other baseline markers will be good, too. The blood work will tell the tale but, based on her looks and actions, I think she’s going to be given a pretty clean bill of health tomorrow. It’ll cost almost $150 to find out, but it’s a mandatory check, or else if she goes back down hill and needs thyroid treatment again down the road for hyperthyroidism, it won’t be covered. So, I need to get the checkup done…
I’d love to get her teeth cleaned, but that would involve anesthetizing her, and that would be risky at her age, so …
At her age, the least intervention, the better…
But I sure am glad we did what we did in January. There is no way she would have survived much longer without it, and she would have been anxious the entire rest of her life.
It was a great decision, and again, I am soooo grateful for the financial help that so many wonderful people provided! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
