What's Going On with the Cat?

Last month Zelda was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism at her regularly scheduled annual exam. Her major signs were playing a lot (increased activity), insatiable appetite, and losing weight. We caught it early and the recommendation was radioactive iodine treatment.

Basically, they inject radioactive iodine (2.5 millicuries to be exact) into her and it is supposed to basically cure the thyroid condition in 95% of cases. I am, at this point, refusing to think about the other 5%. (The other option was to use a topical medicine on her ear(s) every day and doing regular blood tests to monitor that dosage. I was not opposed to this, but we did the math and it would only take four years of this treatment to be equivalent to the one and done treatment and it's less likely she'd suffer other organ-related failures with the treatment we chose.)

But now the cat is radioactive. The half-life of I-131 is just over 8 days, so basically for 80 days past her treatment, we have do the following:

• Keep her 3-4 feet away from us as much as possible.
• Limit close contact (closer than 1 foot) to less than 10 minutes per day.
• Wash our hands thoroughly after handling the cat, her food dishes, or her litter.
• If we must pet the cat, we must do so with a glove and wash our hands immediately afterwards.

In addition to this, her urine and feces are radioactive, so we have to collect them (for 80 days) in a binned container (we are keeping it in our garage - I honestly don't know what you would do if you didn't have a garage). I empty Z's litter twice a day. Each time I put on gloves, scoop it into a plastic bag and then put the bag and gloves in a sealed Ziploc bag in this sealed container in the garage. 

This sounds simple enough, I guess. In practice, it's terrible. Poor Zelda wants cuddles. She doesn't understand why I am not petting her when she climbs on my lap for her meager cuddle time each day (because I never have gloves right next to me so I can pet while she's on my lap). She is puzzled why when she sits next to us on the couch, we get up and move. She feels ostracized BECAUSE SHE IS. 

We had a heated discussion about this very thing before we decided on this treatment. I did not think it would be as hard as it has been and I'm quite concerned that after 80 days when we can return to normal, Zelda will no longer come to us for cuddles. I have regrets is what I'm saying. 

And am I following these rules PERFECTLY? Eh. I let her on my lap from 5-20 minutes a day.  I don't worry much if she's sleeping on the couch and I'm on the other couch. I pet her sometimes without gloves and then immediately wash my hands. We have taken to calling her the Little Bomb (like she's a biological weapon - things get dark in our home sometimes). 

This coming Wednesday will be sixteen days since she had her treatment and she's been through two half life series and I'm just going to basically say fuck it to all the limitations about cuddles and pets. I will wash my hands after touching her, I will still package her litter and other waste, and I won't like sleep with her or anything, but I am unwilling to just neglect the cat for another three months. If Marie Curie lived until she was 66 and she was willy-nilly exposing herself to x-rays and carrying around radioactive isotopes around in her pockets, I can pet the cat for a few minutes each day. 

********************

What's your favorite cat behavior? I love it when Zelda carries around toys in her mouth while simultaneously meowing.