old black cats, you break my heart

Pooka vs. Pixie, from 2006

 So, Pixie lost 20% of her body mass in the last year. She did this without losing appetite or energy. The blood tests confirmed hyper-hyper-omghyperthyroidism. She and Pooka had low potassium (kidneys!). And while Pooka's kidney numbers didn't change much, Pix's did, though the hyperthyroidism is probably holding it a little at bay.  Her heart murmur also started singing death metal. There are tests for that, too, but the vet wants to settle out her thyroid meds.

First two weeks, one pill a day, in halves, powdered in her wet food so she doesn't know it's there. Now, this pill is tiny. Like fingernail clipping tiny. She found it in yogurt. She found it in ice cream. But powdered, ha! I can hide that under the potassium powder, which is "tuna" flavored and smells awful and so of course she and Pooka love it.

One blood test later, and her thyroid was on the low end. Apparently she responded well to the meds. Her appetite fell off and she gained almost a pound. So the vet cut her back a half a pill.

And one week into that, she's doing the BIG EYES thing that usually means high BP, diabetes, kidney shit, and hyperthroidism. In Pooka's case, none of these things were true. He just had sudden and immediate and total blindness. Pixie can still see. Not well, but she's got shapes, light, etc. Not so good with up close. Vet visit's already on tap for Monday, vet's out of town until then anyway. No way we're doing an e-clinic visit. A) SUPER EXPENSIVE and B) we know what this is. Or what it likely is. And if the vet puts her back on the extra half pill on Monday, she'll probably recover okay (so saith Google).

She's eating, yay! but she's clearly nervous. No purring when you pet her, even if she leans into your hands. This is not a happy kitty. She won't even investigate the boxes from ThinkGeek and Zappo which are all over the floor. Pooka broke the Birkenstock box getting his 12 lb ass into it. Pix won't even investigate.

She will not do well blind, even though she can hear just fine--unlike Pooka, who moves slowly and carefully and navigates by headbumps and grumbling most of the time. When it first happened, he behaved much the same way, except he moved a lot faster and hit things a lot harder. So I don't know. If her sight doesn't recover, I think we're facing a quality of life issue. She is Not Happy(tm) right now. If she continues in Not Happy and moves into Mostly Scared, well, shit.

Oh, old cats.