avoiding roid rage

Juliet now has two vet appointments a week. My days off usually consist of a long swim, lunch with a friend, and a visit to the animal hospital, and then anything else I can squeeze in -- usually a few errands. I'm trying to eliminate one of the visits, but I need to learn to hydrate the cat, myself, without hurting her. (I don't mind the visits, but the price has gone up surprisingly, and that's enough motivation for me to learn.)

For the second appointment, we've recently started to give her accupuncture. Dr. Randy, who's both a traditional vet and an alternative practitioner, works with her. The general idea is to help her strengthen her back legs because she has started to get a little wobbly. Sometimes, she can jump onto a low chair and sometimes she fails, falling onto her back, and that's just too pathetic. She takes it well, but her humans don't.

I wasn't looking forward to the first needle visit, but she did really well. Dr. Randy started by putting a needle right in the center of her forehead, which seemed to instantly calm her. I'm not sure she even realized the rest of the needles were going in. I kept trying to stroke her ears, but eventually, she looked annoyed, and when I stopped, she curled up and went to sleep. She looked a little like a sparsely-endowed porcupine. (I keep meaning to bring my camera with me.) And with subsequent visits, she seems to be improving, though she's not all better.

At our last visit, Dr. R suggested that I consider anabolic steroids to help with wasting and muscle strength -- yes, the drugs that our federal representatives kept in the news for a while when they didn't want us to think about hunger, health, or the war in Iran. But I know them from my friends with AIDS. Mark used to have them injected periodically into his butt. It's an intramuscular shot, and he said it felt like burning jello going in. And then he'd be full of energy and rage. I would not want my cat to get weekly injections, especially of this stuff -- too nasty. Now they have a patch, which delivers the drug in measured doses and allows its human consumers to maintain a more moderate outlook on life. But of course, that solution won't work for a kitty (fur and dosage problems). There is a liquid that cats can take, and it might even be available in tuna flavor. So we'll start looking into that solution. It would be great to get a little more muscle onto the kitty's haunches, and to give her one more bit of incentive to eat.

And of course, I realize this is a relatively short-term proposition. The cat won't be around forever. But I would like her to go out with comfort and dignity, and if we can help her have those qualities just a little longer, I'll be happy.