Radioactivecat.
Skorch is the first cat I could ever truly call my own. My first cat as an adult. He’ll be ten years old in January, which is almost unfathomable to me. It was only yesterday that he was a sweet baby kitten!
He’s been losing weight for awhile. When I had him in for his yearly exam in May, he’d accidentally lost a pound. He wasn’t a fat cat to start with, and that put him at 8.6 pounds. Not entirely unreasonable for a cat his size. I didn’t run any bloodwork on him at the time because his physical exam was totally normal and he was acting totally normal. I’d recently switched foods, and it was easy enough to blame that as the cause.
A few weeks ago, he suddenly became absolutely ravenous. This cat who has never been a big eater suddenly couldn’t get enough to eat. I took him into work and sure enough, he’d lost more weight. Totally classic for feline hyperthyroidism. On physical exam he had a high heart rate and a palpable thyroid “blip”. Bloodwork confirmed it. He’s only a little bit high, but he’s high.
Options for treatment of hyperthyroidism are varied: radioactive iodine, surgery, or oral medication. Skorch is a relatively young cat. Other than his thyroid-gone-wild, he’s apparently a healthy cat (all his other bloodwork was normal). He’s also not a particularly cooperative cat, which he made abundantly clear during the lengthy blood letting session he required.
So for me, the course of action to take is as close to a no-brainer as possible. I’ve started the ball rolling to get him radioactive iodine treatment. If everything goes as it’s supposed to, Skorch will receive an injection of radioactive iodine next month which will target and destroy the abnormal growth in his thyroid and cure his problem. He shouldn’t require anything more. It will be done. There is a small chance that his thyroid problem is cancer. There is also a small chance that he will end up too far in the other direction and become hypothyroid, thus requiring medication. But most cats do very well with this treatment, and that’s the end of it. I hope that Skorch will be one of them.
It’s not cheap. But the oral medication and regular bloodtesting that he’d require for the rest of his life without it wouldn’t be cheap either. And in all honesty, not having to medicate my cat twice a day for the rest of his life is worth a significant layout of cash!
So while I’m a bit nervous (he’ll have to be at the referral hospital for four days, and then in a bit of quarantine here for an additional two weeks), I’m hopeful that everything will go as it’s supposed to go. He’s really the ideal candidate for this kind of thing. And he’s such a good, sweet kitty. I am glad I am able to give him the very best treatment available for his problem.
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You know I’m pulling for Mr. Skorch to get better! Poor dude. He’s a lucky guy to have you, though. Hugs to both of you!
Imagine the opportunities! You can set fire to paper bags of RADIOACTIVE cat turds on the front porches of your enemies.
I have to flush all of his, um, debris down the toilet (using flushable litter) for two weeks. I’m vaguely concerned about developing RadioactiveButt.
Went through this in the past year with my cat. He had been hyperthyroid for a while. Due to his temperment, it was suggested we try surgery/medication but these failed to keep his thyroid levels in check, so we made him radioactive. Only wish I had done it sooner! The hardest part was his being kept in quarantine for a week at the clinic. They were very sweet and let me “talk” to him over the speaker phone. We were required to keep all of his deposits, so to speak, from the first two weeks in a metal trash can marked with a radioactive waste sticker until three months had passed and it could be disposed of. Can only imagine what the neighbors thought!