Trouble with trouble

I guess Bernie's already scooped me on her blog, but I'm going to tell it anyway.

My cat, Trouble, has been losing weight and throwing up a lot lately. He was once 17 lbs about 4 years ago, and he lost weight when I first moved to Charlotte to a normal 12 lbs. Today, at the vet, he was 7.8 lbs. The vet took a lot of tests and confirmed it was hyperthyroidism. This means his metabolism has been in high gear, and therefore the weight loss.

For a lot of reasons, the best solution presented to me was to get him a radioactive iodine treatment, which will kill off the tumor cells in his thyroid glands and leave behind the healthy tissue, which should then regenerate. One shot, two days of quarantine, and boom, it's all done. We'd have to keep him away from small children and pregnant women for 3 months afterwards, is all. We already dispose of his litter in a manner appropriate for bio-hazardous waste, so there's not much else to change in our habits.

The drawback is that this will cost us about $900. Added to the $330 from today's tests. Added to the $60 for the next test in two weeks.

Put that together with the $700 that his broken leg cost me back in 1994, and this is the most expensive cat I've ever had. I guess if you live 14 years, things like this are bound to happen every now and then. He's expected to live into his twenties, by the way, so we really can't just have him take the medicine for the rest of his life, which would pretty much guarantee kidney failure after 2 years.

Trouble kept me sane for many years when I lived alone and hated my job and my life. I owe him the chance for some happy golden years.