(As part of our care club through the vet, Gwen is eligible for yearly x-rays, which I took her in for on Monday. What follows is a post I made on Facebook, which I’m copy/pasting because it sums things up pretty well, and this way, I don’t have to re-write it.)

We got Gwen’s xray results back today. I have to say, after the teeth, the hyperthyroid, the retina detachment, the spring of unending UTI’s, and the 800 colds she gets a year, I thought we were just doing these x-rays as a formality.

Something is wrong with the sassico, more so than normal. But we don’t quite know what. Her lungs came back looking a little funky – either asthma or bronchitis. They could treat that with steroids, buuuuut her heart is enlarged and steroids would make that worse.

We don’t know if the heart enlargement is because of her thyroid, which has been well-controlled (hence, seems less likely), or because she just has heart disease.

So we’re going to get a referral, take her for an echocardiogram, and see if we can figure it out. I don’t expect any particularly lucky breaks. My goal here is to find out what is wrong with her, so we know how best to keep her as happy as possible for as long as possible.

We’ve known this tiny girl now for six whole years. She has exceeded our wildest dreams for her again and again, and made me very passionate about learning about cat behavior and animal shelters. Whether we’ve got a month or five years left with her, Gwen’s impact on us is going to outlive her by a lot.

While I’m not sure what we’re facing with her long term, she has been a cheerful little chatterbox today, back to roaming the house and climbing the cat perch. She’s devouring anything she can get her gums on, and she surprised me with a solid poop in the litter box. I didn’t think I’d be celebrating THAT, but here we are.

Life is full of surprises, and truly, Gwen has been one of the better ones. Thank you for sharing your adoration of this fine feline with me. I’m confident that somehow, this cat knows exactly how loved she is by those who’ve never even met her.