Lucy Health Update

This past Friday, Blair and I met friends for dinner and then as a group we went to the preview of Charlie Engle's movie, Running The Sahara, narrated by Matt Damon. Charlie is a running celebrity and the movie was inspiring, as three men ran up 2 marathons a day in their 111-day treck across the Sahara.

What awaited us at home was not quite as pleasant. Piggy-girl, aka Lucy, had thrown up in 4 different locations around the house. She also threw up twice more during the night, making us anxious to get her into the vet first thing Saturday morning.

We took her in, they did bloodwork, Lucy peed on the vet, pretty much a status quo visit. Although the fact that Lucy was down to 11.5 lbs from her prior 14 lbs. concerned us.

The vet called yesterday to say that Lucy has hyperthyroidism, a disease common in older cats. Lucy is eight and only 5% of cats are diagnosed with hyperthyroidism under the age of 10. For the moment, this means we'll be giving her medication to control the disease two times a day for the rest of her life. Surgery or radioactive iodine treatment are options, but we need to give her medicine for a couple of weeks, retest her blood work and see where we stand. 

She looks and acts fine. The weight loss and excess vomiting were what clued us in to a problem. Other than that, she's bright-eyed, shiny coat, and full of energy. The vet said he thought he may have detected a heart murmur but it was hard to tell as Lucy growled at him during the entire exam. But he probably did - elevated heart rates and/or heart murmurs are common in cats with hyperthyroidsim.

We're fine for now. Just kind of holding out to see where we go from here. I'm of course going to dive in and do some reading on the disease. Our vet says they don't know for sure what causes it, but a recent theory is that an upswing in the disease may be related to all the chemicals and plastic liners found in homes. I also read that pull-top cans of cat food are thought to add risk. Who knows?

Google, here I come.