Poor Mr Perkins

My boy went to the vet nurse on Wednesday to see if he’d put any more weight on. He hadn’t: he’d lost quite a bit more.

He went to the vet today for a blood test to check his thyroid. We’d previously ruled it out because he gained some weight after we changed his diet and got him to eat more.

The results came back showing that his earlier weight gain was a red herring: he has got an overactive thyroid gland. So now he has to have medication twice a day every day.

The vet said, ‘Do you want liquid or tab—‘

‘Liquid.’ I know from experience that it’s far easier to get Mr Perkins to take medicine directly from a syringe than it is to try and shove a tablet in his mouth and get him to swallow it. I hoped it would taste as nice as Loxicom. Later, at home, I found out that it probably does taste as nice as Loxicom. Such a junkie, that cat!

He’s been given the average dose; he needs three-weekly blood tests until the correct dose has been achieved. Then we can consider having him referred for radioiodine treatment. When Mr Pandammonium gets back from his jaunt, we’ll see how much of the cost the insurance will cover. Mr Perkins has always been an expensive cat; now he has surpassed himself.

I gave Mr Perkins lots of sweeties when he got home because he’d had such a traumatic time at the vet. The usual receptionist, who is trained in the ways of holding cats down for blood tests, wasn’t there, so the vet had to drive him to the Witchford branch, from where I was to pick him up after an hour or so. The photo shows Mr Perkins biting the hand that feeds him. Ow.