Feb 05 2011
Testing, 1-2-3
Yesterday, Megan and I took Schatzi to the vet. They wanted to take some blood to make sure that her medication isn’t affecting her liver too much. The test results were complete in about ten minutes, and Schatzi’s liver is fine, though her kidneys were showing on the high end of normal.
Dr. Karen said that if we brought her a urine sample, she could run another test to make sure it wasn’t something bad (all the medi-chat and charts went way over my head). She then handed Megan a ladle.
I had thought that “ladle” was medi-chat for something, but it was, in fact, the type you’d use to distribute soup to the deserving poor or your undeserving family. You can imagine the lovely picture we made walking around the village, me with Schatzi on a leash and Megan with the ladle poised under Schatzi’s underpinnings.
Needless to say, this was the one time in Schatzi’s entire life when she didn’t stop every two minutes to pee. She was prancing around in the sunlight as if she were a puppy. You’d never know that her hips and spine look like cheap Swiss cheese inside.
Finally, Megan was successful and the test revealed nothing untoward. Yay! Apparently cats and dogs tend to get tired kidneys as they age, and since Schatzi is 11 now, it’s not too surprising, just something we need to keep an eye on.
After all that, we felt Schatzi deserved a real, ladle-free walk, so we headed to the headlands.
I love how the wind-swept trees frame the ocean here:
And the path:
The headlands jut out into the rocky ocean:
It was a beautiful day, and Schatzi trotted along happily on the narrow path, enjoying the sun on her fur as we enjoyed being with her in this lovely place.