McGoon

Goony is 13 years old now. I can't believe that many years have gone by. Over the past year he has been losing weight and now weighs only 11 pounds. He used to weigh about 20 pounds. Last week he got another infection in his head in the same spot where he had one last year after the cat fight, so we decided to take him to the vet -- or I should say I made Paul take him to the vet.


This is what Goony's head looked like last Friday morning. We couldn't really see where an injury was, but his head was all puffy and he suddenly had a bald spot on his head.


The vet drained out the pus and prescribed this combination of antibiotics.


We have to administer it using a plastic syringe. It smells like bubble gum, but Goony is not very fond of having it squirted into his mouth and a lot of it ends up all over my hand and his neck.

While we had him at the veterinary clinic, we decided to find out what was causing his weight loss. The vet said his heart rate was 246 and all signs pointed to an overactive thyroid. So after the blood test came back, that is indeed what he has. This is the medication that we are supposed to give him.


This end of the tube is to be turned 2 times (where the arrows match up). This squirts out a very small glob of medicine that is to be applied to the inside of Goony's ear. There's a foam applicator where the medicine squeezes out from under that yellow cap.


Another strange thing happened to Goony while he was at the vet's office. She said he was dehydrated, so she took him into the back room and administered some kind of subcutaneous fluid under his skin. He came back with his hair all wet, so I'm not sure how much actually made it into his body. He seemed to be okay until the next day when he suddenly was nearly unable to walk at all. It was as if his back legs had no strength or coordination at all. He could barely stand up, take a couple steps, and then squat back down. When he tried to pee in his litter box, he didn't have the strength to squat for long, so he ended up lying down in the litterbox. It was quite sad and distressing.

So I took it upon myself to diagnose the problem. I had watched a TV show that showed a person with severe potassium deficiency who had become paralyzed in a short period of time. Well, I figured that Goony might have a low potassium. We just happened to have potassium pills in the house, so I ground one up and put some of the powder into Goony's food. He got a couple small doses of this, and by the evening he seemed to be a little better and was back to normal by the next day. Of course, I have no idea if I was correct or not in my diagnosis or if the potassium had any effect at all, but Goony is back to his normal self so that's all that matters.