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Tuesday, March 21st, 2006
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10:55a
Cayman is down to 9 pounds and we don't know why. He should be at least twice that. He was heavier when we got him.
I worry about the poor guy. We took him off the weight-loss food (W/D) a year ago; he was on that food only because he kept it down half the time, unlike other foods which never stayed down. Then we switched to a more organic food, and he's ironically been digesting more of his food while he's losing more weight than he ever did on the weight-loss food. He's become, in the past couple of years, increasingly clingy, insistent on attention to the point of biting (he's always been a biter, but he's not random about it, and biting for positive attention is a new one), he sleeps more and more and barely bothers to hit the dog (which is great for the dog, and to some extent it's because they love each other like crazy, but sometimes the dog practically runs him over and he does nothing). He's losing small chunks of fur, just around his neck, and when I looked at him last night I noticed just how thin he'd become. He looks like Kate Moss, big ol' head on a little popsicle body. I never thought my handsome boy could be so little.
The yearly checkup last night provided the big shock, seeing his weight. He has a very thick coat and is naturally bulky, and in retrospect - yeah, I can feel his spine jutting out. Yeah, he has been a lot easier to pick up, which I'd chalked up to his actually wanting to be picked up instead of him being light as a feather. His winter coat, too, came in and I guess just never left, because he's so skinny. He sleeps under our blankets a lot in the winter and pants on the kitchen floor in the summer.
The vet's running some tests. They suspect he has hyperthyroidism. There's no heart or liver or kidney damage that they could see, and he drinks normally for a cat of the size he's supposed to be, and he eats like a pig.
As much as that cat annoys me, and causes me trouble, and is addressed often with profanity, he's still my boy. And it sucks so hard that he has to go through this, even if he doesn't give us any signs of unhappiness and doesn't seem to feel very sick. (Even when he's lethargic, he's ecstatic.) He's had enough shit handed down to him in his life, and he should just be able to eat and drink normally and be the big predator he really is.
9 pounds. Jesus.
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