Saturday, April 17, 2010

Another bloodletting!

Another trip to the vet! This is getting old! I'm still coughing and having breathing problems. I know I'm old, but it's not like I have a 3 pack a day problem.
I look pretty insignificant in the big scheme of things in this photo. It's a bad perspective or something because if I wasn't a big deal they wouldn't be shoveling all this money into my medical care.

Here is my owner giving me the full body petting treatment. I know better than to let my guard down though. There's usually not much pleasant that happens to an animal at these vet clinics. I'm just stating the obvious here.
Jennifer is the first medical staff to check on me. She's the one who comes over to take care of me when my owners are gone. They don't have some kid next door check on me; I get a fully trained vet technician to give me my steroids and cancer meds and give me a thorough looking over. She also feeds me naturally.

Unfortunately (for me) the first thing they have to do before they get down to business is weigh you and take your temperature. Weighing in is no big deal but getting your temp taken is down right unpleasant. I think the surveillance photos tell the story better than any string of words I could come up with!

My medical case is pretty complicated. That's why I have all kinds of medical staff looking after me. It's the celebrity treatment that I deserve. The verdict is that I need to have blood tests done and sent down to the specialists at California Veterinary Specialists in Murrietta where they can scope it out.

I HATE having my blood drawn! It's not simple like for humans. They stick a needle right into your jugular vein (yikes!) to suck the blood out of me.
As can be seen here, this required them bringing in some big burly guy to physically subdue me so the lab tech could nail me with the syringe. I made sure it wasn't pleasant for anyone! I was in a bad mood about this!
The blood is for a CBC blood test. It sounds pretty simple but it analyses a lot of things about my blood. I got to have the right amount of red blood cells and it tests that. Seems like it would go without saying that blood cells are red. I mean blood is red itself! Therefore, if there were cells in blood and they weren't red they sure would be once they got all bloody!! Everything is red after it gets bloody! It also tests my hemocrit which has something to do with how packed my blood cells are. When the vet first mentioned my hemocrit I thought she was calling me a hypocrite! That's not me! Hemoglobin, reticulocytes and all kinds of other stuff too. Sure alot of stuff in blood!!
I was feeling a little surly after all this. The penalty for this is apparently locking you up! Oh well - time out is never a punishment for a cat. We excel at laying around doing nothing! I was in and out of there in a half an hour. No biggie!

Looks like they'll send my blood tests down to the specialty clinic to my oncologist, Dr Prioux. We'll see what he has to say!