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We took the cats to the vet for their annual checkup last night. I rode my bike home from work, which was a real challenge, particularly getting up the steep hill streets, as I have been out of practice since October. I even left work ten minutes early, at 4:20, and it still too me until 5:00 before I got home.
And then we had to hurry: Shobhit wanted some photos taken on the rooftop terrace with the Seattle skyline as a backdrop, for use o his eventual campaign website. The unfortunate thing was that this was an overcast day; the pictures would have been a lot better with sunlight and blue skyes, but, oh well. I suppose a cloudy sky is on brand for Seattle.
I took several quick pictures, then we went back downstairs to get the cats into the carrier, and rive them over the City Cat vet. As always when we take them to the vet, they weren't thrilled. Even when we opened the carrier in the exam room, Shanti wanted to stay in the carrier, and Guru tried his best to cram himself between Shobhit's back and the wall, on the sort of bench section available for us to sit on.
These exams are done on the floor; this vet doesn't have elevated exam tables. Shobhit could not easily get on the floor because of his appendectomy though, and he stayed seated on the bench. I did get down on the floor to be with the cats.
The vet seemed to find Shanti in pretty good working order. She found Guru's thyroid to be twice as big as it was last year, however, and suggested blood work. We did that, and if it comes back indicating hyperthyroidism, he'll likely be on a twice-daily pill for the rest of his life.
Shobhit kept talking about their quality of life and not making them too uncomfortable in what time they have left, as though convinced their time is limited. We don't actually know that already though so he needs to pump the breaks on that shit.
Anyway, the blood work results are supposed to come back in about a week. If it is hyperthyroidism, he apparently needs blood work again another two weeks after that to check on the state of his kidneys, which if there is any issue apparently hyperthyroidism could mask. Or something like that. I just know that if it's hyperthyroidism then he'll need blood work again in two weeks. She did say that this could be the cause of his frequent vomiting. If he gets on medication and he suddenly vomits a lot less, I'll be all for it. I'm very practiced at giving him pills anyway so I'm really not at all worried about that.
If it's
not hyperthyroidism, and his blood work comes back all normal just like it did last year, then . . . I don't know what. It's another year of "wait and see," I guess?
The vet also expressed Shanti's anal glands, which she seems to need to do with her every year anymore. She did the same for Guru although his need wasn't as high. At our request, she also shaved the fur around Shanti's anus, as she gets poop matted into her fur a lot. She's done that before. We could swear we've been charged for these things before, but we got no charge for them this time, which was a surprise. The expressing of anal glands was on the invoice with a $0 charge; the shaving wasn't even mentioned. All we got charged for was $65 for one cat exam; $55 for an additional cat; and $165 for the blood work—$285 total. Shobhit could hardly believe it, and genuinely seemed to think they were undercharging us, which is a pretty rare position for him to take. But, sometimes, if it's a small business, he does actually become more concerned with their business viability than with his own spending. And for the record, he's had a history of being this way, at least occasionally, before he was actually running for office.
He did tell everyone there about his run for Seattle City Council. She even said he could bring back campaign information to put out in their lobby once he has it ready to bring by, which was very cool.
Shanti was pretty peeved about the whole experience. When her exam was over and she was put back in the carrier, she growled. When Guru was put into the carrier with her, she growled, and even hissed once. Even after we got them back home and they could get back out of the carrier, she growled a few times, when Guru got within a few inches of her. She had a lot of "leave me the fuck alone" energy. Maybe an hour after that, however, she was back to normal and acting as if she didn't remember any of it happening at all.
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— पांच हजार तीन सौ चौहत्तर —
Shobhit had already made dinner, a lentil dish we had with fried frozen parathas, which we ate while watching another episode of
Shrinking on Apple TV+.
We then set out again. Shobhit needed to take his doctor's note excusing him from work to Total Wine, so I drove him out there to do that. It took a little while. We were probably gone at least an hour, as we also stopped by the PCC office so I could pick up a few samples I had to bring home, and then we also went to the Central District PCC to get some milk. For some reason he decided he doesn't like the milk from Trader Joe's, and he just decided to live with the $6.99 price we have for a gallon of organic milk.
We came back home again. I made myself some Twinings Australian Afternoon tea, which I ordered from Amazon, having really liked it when Mary Ann made it for us at her and Uncle David's house in Adelaide. I'm not finding it quite as great as I did there—maybe it has to do with type of milk they use?—but, close. At first I made the mistake of using two tea bags because I was using a much larger cup than Mary Ann had given me, but later found that one tea bag remains more than enough.
We watched another episode of
Shrinking. Four episodes done, six to go. I'm kind of liking that show more and more the further we get into it. After that I spent just a few minutes tagging photos from the Australia tip, not getting a whole lot done, before it was time to go to bed.
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[posted 12:29 pm]
