kitty update
Jan. 29th, 2003 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe vet just called (that was fast!) with results from Erik's blood test. His calcium level is still "a little" high (13.1, but I don't know the units). Everything else was solidly normal. The vet said that they usually worry about kidney damage when that calcium number times some other measurement (the name of which I didn't manage to write down) is greater than 60; that number in Erik's case is 4.5, for a product of 58.95, so close but not in the worry zone yet, she says. (I said something like "gee, that's awfully close", and she said it's not as close as it sounds. Or something to that effect.)
The blood test did not show anything that would explain his weight loss. She said that it could just be the diet change (he got put on the special diet two years ago, which is also when the weight loss started), or it could be the early stages of a kidney problem. She said that kidney problems don't actually show up in a blood test until they're pretty far gone (75% loss of function), so to know if there's actually a kidney problem, we need a different kind of test.
I've never tried to collect a urine sample from a cat before. This should be, um, an adventure.
There are two causes for concern: the higher-than-normal calcium level and the weight loss. It sounds like she is not particularly concerned about the weight loss yet (though we should monitor it better, so maybe I need a suitable scale for home). And some cats, she said, just have high calcium levels -- so maybe there's nothing wrong at all. But if there is, I want to catch it now rather than when it becomes obvious (and hard to treat) later.
The blood test did not show anything that would explain his weight loss. She said that it could just be the diet change (he got put on the special diet two years ago, which is also when the weight loss started), or it could be the early stages of a kidney problem. She said that kidney problems don't actually show up in a blood test until they're pretty far gone (75% loss of function), so to know if there's actually a kidney problem, we need a different kind of test.
I've never tried to collect a urine sample from a cat before. This should be, um, an adventure.
There are two causes for concern: the higher-than-normal calcium level and the weight loss. It sounds like she is not particularly concerned about the weight loss yet (though we should monitor it better, so maybe I need a suitable scale for home). And some cats, she said, just have high calcium levels -- so maybe there's nothing wrong at all. But if there is, I want to catch it now rather than when it becomes obvious (and hard to treat) later.
Re: Thanks!
Date: 2003-01-30 06:55 am (UTC)Heh! Practically the only hebrew question you will have that I know the answer to! I think it's "chatool" (with the "ch" being a chet, I think.)
I shared an apartment in Jerusalem with two cats: Avigail and Avishag. Avishag was a younger cat, rescued from the street, who liked to cuddle with people. (c.f. 1 Kings 1:2-4). It was actually kind of nice that I could say avi... and then pause to figure out which cat I was talking to. (Although Avigail was older and more aloof and didn't usually have much to do with me.)