Update on Tuulikki

I'm very glad to hear that!

I LOVE black cats!!

Both @Handwing and @Purple_Cat will be happy to hear of the results! 💖🥰🥰💖

Part 1 I'm thrilled with the results but baffled. I've lost 2 older cats some years back to kidney failure. Tuulikki had all the signs of it and she is 14 or 15. She drinks LOTS and, of course, pees lots. I was cleaning the litter box 2-3 times a day. Her appetite was very poor and her stools were rock hard. She acted unwell too and took to hiding in dark corners or squeezing under the couch.

Got a friend to take me to the vet and blood was drawn to run tests on all possible reasons. He also gave me a med to jump-start her appetite till the results came in. And boy, it did!! But also screaming, biting and clawing if I didn't feed her fast enough. She's NEVER EVER bit or clawed me before! 😳

Part 2 Next dose, I gave only half but she was no calmer. At this point, I barely liked her. She'd kept me awake at night, screaming to be fed. I stopped the med and in 2 days, she became hersweet gentle self. When the results came in, the vet emailed them as I asked and we discussed them. (I know how to interpret lab results.) There was nothing even slightly off -- except somewhat dilute urine as expected. Her lab results were that of a younger healthy cat!!

So what was going on? Neither the vet nor I have a clue. My son and I joked she had Munchausen Syndrome - and NOT by proxie either. She's back to her normal super-cuddly gentle loving self with a good appetite. She's still thirstier than I'd expect but our condo suite does get very dry in winter, so who knows? Just happy she's doing great and we now have a healthy baseline in her test results that we can compare if anything changes in the future.

Part 3 As a side note, about 35 years back, we had a stray we adopted (like we did her) who suddenly stopped eating, after always having a great appetite. After a day of this, plus some drooling he did, we took him to the vet. Both her and us thought he might be blocked somewhere higher up. X-rays and labs came back normal and for the two extra days he was at the vet clinic, he wouldn't eat and was withdrawn (and he was normally a very people-loving cat). But then we got a call from her we could pick him up. As a final try, she gave him an injection of a benzodiazepine that was known to jump-start an appetite in cats. He already had six bowls of different cat food around him she had tried. She said when the shot hit him, he vacuumed them all down. She laughed and said she'd never seen a cat eat so fast before! I replied that's his normal appetite. We never found the reason why he wouldn't eat. Must be a stray thing! 😂