Vet Report

Maximillian

"Max"

Some news must be shared!

Good news, when it is a rare visitor in your life, is reason to rejoice.

My husband and I share our lives with 2 feline brothers, Max and Wally. This month was their annual physicals. I always dread these visits. To begin with, the boys are not good travelers. I guess that is because every time they travel, they visit the vet ... a very nice man who has been our vet for a very long time.

When they were 3, it was discovered that Max has early onset degenerative kidney disease. That news was hard to accept. Kidney disease in older cats is common. We have been down that path before with several older cats.

Kidney disease at 3 is a very hard thing to acknowledge. It most certainly means a shorten life for Max.

As soon as it was discovered, we began corrective measures: prescription food, reduced stress, and subcutaneous fluids every other day. With those changes maybe we could delay the inevitable. And every year they both have the full blood and urine work up.

Believe me when I say that those yearly trips are expensive. But I am a firm believer that when you accept a pet into your home and your into life, they are family. They get the care that is needed to provide as comfortable and as long a life as God intends.

And so, Max has been getting subcutaneous fluids every other day for 2 years.

Last year, Max's blood work results showed that he was relatively stable. There were some values that had pointed to continuing degenerative changes to his kidneys. But the vet was happy. These slow changes are expected, he said. I was happy too, but downward health changes to all the beings that share my home were the norm now. Any reduced kidney function in Max, no matter how small, added to the weight my heart was carrying.

Today we got Max's recent lab values back. The vet was hard pressed to explain it ... Max's kidney values were better!!! He said he always hopes that things remain stable, but he has never seen kidneys show improvement. Never.