There was an earlier blog posting between Martha in Titusville Pennsylvania and Dr Elizabeth and myself, urging her to take Chester for radioactive iodine treatments. Here was her reply:
Hi Tracie
I did try to get through to you on Cat Chat® but I got disconnected and couldn’t get back on again. Chester, the cat with hyperthyroidism, is doing well with the pills. My vet is very good, but we live in a very rural part of Pennsylvania. The reason I said that Radioactive Iodine treatments wasn’t an option was not the fault of the vet — he is a great vet! He also went to Cornell and is very open to what I tell him about your web site and the information that you give all of us. He will accommodate what I want for my animals. That means I’m not doing the vaccinations except for rabies. He simply doesn’t have the facilities that a bigger city would have. Akron, Ohio was the closest place to go for that treatment which is about 2 hours away… not really reasonable for Chester or me.
I don’t give him “kitty crack” and have been ordering from Pet Food Direct with your discount as well as getting good canned food from Petco. I did want you to know I’m doing what I can in this situation. Chester is heading for 16 years old… and is doing quite well right now with the medication. I wish things would be different, but for now it seems the meds are ok.
I have been on the band wagon about “kitty crack” to all my friends and their families… sometimes it seems that I am a fanatic! I try to do it as nicely as I can but you can’t believe the people that just don’t get it with cats being carnivores. They think that dry food is the only way to go.
I will probably buy many more Cat Bibles and send your message out. Thanks again for your radio programs.
Dear Martha,
I am sorry we came down so hard on you and your wonderful-sounding vet! I guess Dr. Elizabeth and I get frustrated by pet owners not being given all the options. In fact, the only place anybody can get a radioactive iodine treatment to cure their cat’s hyperthyroidism is at a designated clinic for that purpose alone — no normal vet clinic can offer it — so your geographical issue clearly makes it too tough for you. I am sure he will continue just fine on the pills. The only concern is that for some cats the dosage needs to be steadily increased and at some point may no loner be effective but there’s no saying that will happen with Chester. As for your advocacy of wet food only and trying to educate people about “kitty crack” — I am so proud of you and grateful for your attempts — but sometimes just sending them to my website is better than wearing yourself out, making enemies of resistant listeners and then they still stick with the nasty old dry food anyway!
I want you to know that I have a new radio show called DOG TALK® & CAT CHAT® which I hope you’ll start listening to and tell your friends to, also. You can listen to live online at WOR710.com on Saturday nights at 10 PM EST or by podcast the following day at WOR710.com and go to “schedule”, “weekend schedule”, scroll down to my page and at the bottom there is a link to the podcasts.
Tracie