To cut or not to cut, that is the question.
I am truly torn. My sixteen year old sweet biddy of a kitty, Blythe, has a coat that looks like shit no matter how much you brush her/wash her/feed her good stuff, she's lost a lot of weight, she's constantly hungry and drinks a lot of water... come to find out she's got an over-active thyroid.
Treatments are: one pill a day, broken into two pieces and fed one half in the morning, one half at night.
Surgery to remove the over-active section.
Radiation to kill the over-active section.
The vet says that, according to all her bloodwork, etc., she's a super healthy old cat and he thinks the risk level of the surgery is "low." But she's so old and frail that I can't fathom doing that to her. Picking her up makes me worry I'll break a bone, they're so fragile feeling...
My husband says it'll be more stressful to her to try to hunt her down and feed her a half a pill twice a day every day, for the rest of her life... and he's probably right. That girl hates getting pilled almost more than anything. It would be a definitely struggle to keep her meds consistent just because she is so damn good at escaping/hiding. So in the long run, feeding her pills might not even work because she will not make it easy to pill her and we'd miss doses, etc. She eats AROUND pills we hide in food, so that's not an option.
SIGH! So I keep going back and forth - pills or surgery, surgery or pills.
My poor baby girl.
Treatments are: one pill a day, broken into two pieces and fed one half in the morning, one half at night.
Surgery to remove the over-active section.
Radiation to kill the over-active section.
The vet says that, according to all her bloodwork, etc., she's a super healthy old cat and he thinks the risk level of the surgery is "low." But she's so old and frail that I can't fathom doing that to her. Picking her up makes me worry I'll break a bone, they're so fragile feeling...
My husband says it'll be more stressful to her to try to hunt her down and feed her a half a pill twice a day every day, for the rest of her life... and he's probably right. That girl hates getting pilled almost more than anything. It would be a definitely struggle to keep her meds consistent just because she is so damn good at escaping/hiding. So in the long run, feeding her pills might not even work because she will not make it easy to pill her and we'd miss doses, etc. She eats AROUND pills we hide in food, so that's not an option.
SIGH! So I keep going back and forth - pills or surgery, surgery or pills.
My poor baby girl.