Three Senior Cats to the Veterinarian!
So me and Mimi and Giuseppe and Mr Sunshine visited Pet Well Clinic for a senior cats party yesterday.
Mr. Sunshine: I know all about this place.
Giuseppe: why am I here and what am I supposed to do?
Mimi : what can I get into?
I finally managed to save enough to work on this care for them, not necessarily all three at once, but when it came down to deciding I couldn’t triage who was most important and who could wait. All three have needed veterinary services for a while, but of course Mewsette and Jelly Bean took precedence, and most of the money too. But Mr Sunshine needed a blood pressure check at least, Giuseppe needed a follow-up from his visit to MedVet in May, and poor Mimi hasn’t had an exam or blood tests in two years!
My regular veterinarian didn’t have any appointments for a while. I wanted to get this done while I have the money for it, and I feel an urgency after losing Mewsette and Jelly Bean because things happened so fast with both of them. I decided a visit to PetWellClinic for an exam with Dr. Sudberg and as many tests as I could afford was exactly what we needed. I didn’t want to just walk in with three cats knowing they needed a number of services like blood pressure checks and blood draws, both for the veterinarian’s and technicians’ schedule that day and to keep these three calm for as long as possible. I can check through my profile on the PetWellClinic site how many pets are in line and I waited until it was only four, packed these three up and put them in line in my account, then headed down.
No bad news, looks like no one has an end-of-life condition right now, though Mimi does have a slight heart murmur which I suspected, the boys blood pressures were sky high, 200 to 250 and 160 is high for a cat, somewhere between 130 and 140 is normal. But looking at the lack of other symptoms in Giuseppe like the dilated pupils and any trace of cardiac issues, he may be hyperthyroid like his siblings. Mr. Sunshine may need an extra medication for his blood pressure. They all came through it well but a little tired.
Mr Sunshine and Giuseppe both still had rather high blood pressure numbers. Mimi didn’t get a blood pressure reading.
Dr. Sudberg emailed me with the most important numbers on the test results this afternoon, and they emailed the full results over to me a few hours later. The most surprising/not surprising thing was that Giuseppe has hyperthyroid disease, but so does Mimi! This could be the reason for Giuseppe’s hypertension. I didn’t get Mr Sunshine checked for it yesterday, but we’ve had a hard time controlling Mr Sunshine’s blood pressure, and seeing that everyone else in his family has hyperthyroid disease and talking it over with Dr. Sudberg and Dr. Goodell today, I’m going to get him T4 tested and see where his numbers are. Mr. Sunshine also has heart disease, but it could be that hyperthyroid disease has been making it more difficult to control. Mr. Sunshine doesn’t have any of the other symptoms of hyperthyroid disease, nor does Mimi, but Giuseppe clearly has for the past few months.
It makes me leery of the outcome…both Mewsette and Jelly Bean developed hyperthyroid disease first, then really started to fail fast and ended up with lymphoma, which may have moved in when they were weakened by an overactive thyroid. All had high numbers, 7 and above. Giuseppe’s was 3.7 in May, Mr. Sunshine’s was 1.7 in May. Mimi’s was 2.3 in 2021, all in the normal range.
Mimi now weighs five pounds, has a little bit of a heart murmur, and other than that just some slightly skewed blood levels, but still excellent for being 20.
Everyone has a little ear infection. Got medication for that.
Giuseppe was pretty anxious after his exam, blood draw and blood pressure reading, but Mr. Sunshine was stationed under the exam table and turned his healing purr up to 10 so Giuseppe and all the rest of us benefited from it. Mr. Sunshine does that to calm himself, but plenty of times I could hear him when he was spooning with Mewsette. Angel, the veterinary technician who took the readings and drew blood, said it was like hearing white noise and could make him a little drowsy. I told him that Mr. Sunshine was the comfort for the family, the caretaker.
So starting some new medications and then retests for all in 2 to 3 weeks. But I’m glad to see that other than that they are all in quite good health otherwise—I’ve been so happy with the improvements I’ve seen in appetite, activity level and general health in Mr. Sunshine and Giuseppe since they’ve been going outdoors, and Mimi is just amazing. Just hoping they stay that way, and the dreaded lymphoma doesn’t show up anytime soon.
I will take Mr. Sunshine back for his T4 test as soon as I can get the money together, since this really cleaned me out, then everyone needs to go back for retests in two to three weeks as well as blood pressure readings.
Please send purrs!
So, critical cat care back to back and probably ongoing, this visit was $485, and with Mr. Sunshine’s T4 test ASAP and retests very soon I hope I can make it all stretch far enough. I’ve also had to move things around in the basement again so I’ve been out of my studio down there for over a week and can’t finish a couple of projects (and get paid) just yet. Please go ahead and visit my website www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net and order up some things! If you choose, I also have a donation button on this page on this website. And if you did want to donate another way, my Paypal address is bernadette @ bernadette-k . com and my Venmo is @Bernadette-Kazmarski. And thank you for caring, whether you buy something or donate or not.
Here are some ideas…
As always, if you would like to help me with veterinary costs, I would be so grateful. Right now all this is taking in as much as I’m earning, and then some. In addition to these three, Mimi is due for her annual visit, Morty still needs prescription foods until I can get him back to the veterinarian for his workup so he can be up for adoption, and all of them need to eat. I want to keep them all comfortable in whatever way is best for each cat.
- Consider a Custom Pet Memorial Votive for yourself or a family member or friend. Remember that they don’t actually have to be memorials—a votive with someone’s pet on it while they are very much alive is also a nice custom gift!
- Visit www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net, especially my Handmade Gift Gallery.
- I still have plenty of feline garden flags, though I’m currently out of a few designs, and all the votive lamps and keepsake boxes are on my site.
- I have one of each of the Tortie Girls block prints and one of Awakening, all are matted and framed.
- And consider even a small portrait of one or more of your fine felines.
If you have any questions, please let me know! And thanks for any help.
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And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
How sweet of Mr. Sunshine to give calming purrs. I will be praying for all of them. XO
He is the family caretaker. Thank you! All are responding well to the new medications.