Pumpkin The Cat

Our 14-year old cat Pumpkin is sick. She has hyperthyroidism. She isn't acting too sick yet, like you would imagine a sick cat acting. The worst symptom is that she is literally bone thin. At her healthiest peak years ago she weighed 14 pounds, and was a tad overweight. Now she weighs a measly 8.6 pounds. She is so thin, that she can fit through the bars of our baby gates (we still have 2 up, a) to keep Ballou out of the cat food room [it has a little cat door in it] and b) to keep all animals out of Jude's room.)

A cat's heart rate at rest should be around 120-150. At its most excited it could get up to 200. Her heart rate was almost 300 at the vet!

After her thyroid test, they told me normal levels would be 0.8 to 4.0. Hers was 10.8. So yeah, she's sick.

The poor kitty is hungry all the time, but has a hard time eating. She can't sit still long enough to eat, and then some of the time she eats so fast, she quickly regurgitates it. And this whole time that I noticed she was losing weight, I kept thinking, "but she's so active! Look at her! She can't be sick!", but really, it was just her over-active thyroid making her spaz out.

The three options:

1) Iodine shot - $1500

- At the local university, not the vet. She would be radioactive for a couple of weeks, so would have to stay there for that long while guys in space suits took care of her.

**Pros - It's a sure shot cure, like, pretty much 100%.
**Cons - The price. Also, she's old, and I don't like the idea of stressing her out further. She's a stressed out cat with strangers as it is, and I just don't like the isolation space suit idea. And although they said the radioactivity would be out of her system in a couple of weeks, radioactivity sorta concerns me since I am pregnant. Also, dealing with the local university vet school is a pain for various reasons.

2) Surgery - $350-$400

-At the vet. They would remove the nodules from her thyroid.

**Pros - Less expensive, not a complicated surgery, not too invasive, she would be home the same day and back to her normal self in 2 days or less. All of her other tests came back normal, so even though she is old, she is healthy enough to do this. They have a good success rate with this method.
**Cons - Although there is a high success rate, it also may not work. There is a chance that the nodules could come back. However, it wouldn't be right away; it'd be years, so either she'd have passed away from old age by then, or we could just put her on meds (see below).

3) Medicine - $35 a month

- A swab of solution you put on her ear twice daily

**Pros - Completely non-invasive, cheaper in the short-term, less stress on Pumpkin
**Cons - Time-consuming...are we really going to have time for this, especially once two more babies come? We barely remember to give Ballou her heart worm medication, and that's just once a month. Plus, we have to go to a special pharmacy for it, which is totally inconvenient, both the location and the service. I've used them before. Less stress for Pumpkin, but more stress for us.

Plus two more options that the Vet did not mention, but which exist nonetheless:

4) Do nothing.

The problem with this is that she is going to get worse, and aside from the obvious cruelty, there is also the high chance that she is going to start peeing all over our house. This is one of the side effects of this disease.

5) Put her to sleep.

I would do this over #4. It's not a bad solution. She is 14 years old after all. However, I just feel like if you choose to accept the responsibility of owning a pet, you can't just dump them off or kill them, even humanely, b/c they have become inconvenient for you. If it was going to be thousands of dollars, sure, we have to be realistic. But we can handle a few hundred dollars, I think. Not my ideal way to spend money, but again, I think we should accept our responsibilities when it comes to pets.


An interesting coincidence is that our cat Scamper died when I was pregnant with Jude. He just suddenly dropped dead though (we think a brain tumor or stroke), and I hate to overuse this word, but I mean, literally, he just suddenly dropped dead. In so many ways, that was easier. I was sad to see him go and it was a bit of a shock, and I still miss him, but what an easy way to die. He did not suffer that we know of, and we did not have to make any hard decisions, nor spend much money.

Matt and I jokingly theorize that the pets sense I'm pregnant and they get stressed, making them sicker. Can't they just be happy for me? ;-)