Wednesday Blood Test Results Blogging

I've spoken to the vet. He says Cypress' liver enzymes are a bit elevated, but not too bad, it's consistent with her just not eating very much. He says her white blood cell counts are normal, which probably rules out cancer and various infections. He points out that the results basically tell us what's probably not wrong, but not what is wrong, and obviously not why, and suggests we take her to the cat clinic for fuller diagnostics including a liver biopsy.

So when I note that Cypress hates you? It's nothing compared to the white hot rage she will cherish in her seething heart for all of humanity for the next, oh, call it eternity. And I'm not prepared to blame her for that.

We have Veterinary Pet Insurance on the cats. We've had it for years, and have never made a claim. Basically the reason we have it is so that when the cats wind up with something horribly expensive wrong with them, I don't have to decide between bankrupting my partner and letting the furmonsters die. But since it's mostly for extreme emergencies like that, we haven't used it yet, admittedly mostly because paperwork makes me break out in hives, so I'll be looking into how to file a claim in the upcoming days. I have a feeling the cat clinic is not cheap. I'll report back on how useful VPI is, if anyone here has used it, feel free to let me know what you thought.

The vet says, essentially, that it's quite likely that Cypress is just bored with the food she gets, as they get older their tastebuds die off (So do yours, you hairless primate. Don't look so smug.). This wouldn't especially surprise me, since the reason we took her off the prescription food is that she just had no interest in eating it. And while you might be able to say "You're going to sit there and not get anything else to eat, young man, until those lima beans are gone", this is not a tactic that works on the cat. Not Cypress, anyway. She's perfectly capable of holding her breath till she turns blue. And I'm a soft touch, and my partner spent two hours going to a half dozen grocery stores and pet food stores last night collecting a variety of food brands and flavors.

My theory continues to be that years ago we fed her something that she was okay with at the time but didn't know enough to know was the best she would ever get out of us, so she sort of turned up her nose at it in feigned disinterest to see what else we'd offer. But it never got any better than that, and she's still waiting for us to get a clue and try it again.

So the vet backed off on the prescription food suggestion and said, in essence, feed her freaking Meow Mix if you have to, but she has to eat, and she has to eat a certain amount, or the fat will start migrating into her liver. As nearly as I can tell, neither of my cats has ever eaten the amount, volume-wise, of food they're supposed to, they just don't get much exercise so it's allowed them to get pretty hefty. (This is my problem, too, for the record.)

So I'm not sure that she's ever going to eat the right number of calories or the right amount of food by weight, but right now she's pretty much just licking the sauce off the food we're giving her, and that's not enough. Today I got sneaky and started mashing the food together so she can't get the sauce without eating at least some of the food.

The vet has also offered vitamins in liquid form, and something called a "pilling gun", which I'm looking forward to attempting to use. I hope it comes with a self-suturing attachment.

Because she can't actually talk, I have a feeling we're going to end up getting a bunch of plastic plates, putting a forkful of each of a dozen or so foods on each one and labeling them, and then ignoring her to see what she finishes. That should be loads of fun, as well.

Bottom line: we still don't know, but it's probably nothing life-threatening, and we'll more than likely actually be able to afford to find out what's wrong with her. And for right now, that's pretty good.

I, meanwhile, thank you for your kind wishes. She won't, but again this is nothing personal, but the next person I send cranes to will get some Pre-Chewed for Your Convenience, and that's a kind of thanks, sort of.

You are invited to leave in the comments your advice on foods for finicky cats (The vet advised us to go lightly on the fish flavors, and beef seems to make her barf, which is understandable because I would guess it's been thirty thousand years or so since a cat was last capable of hunting and eating anything like a cow.), your own personal love for the Spot Bot or the Dyson pet-specific vacuum cleaner, stories of vet bills and pet insurance and a lack thereof, cat-related stories of any sort, dog-related stories because you are not a cat person, or pretty much anything else except the recipe for Pringles Mashed Potatoes because I plan to do that here in the next couple days and hate people stepping on my lines.