Today was Natasha's quarterly visit to see TED. Natasha visits TED
every 3 months because she's borderline CRF, which the doctor wants to
keep a close eye on due to her age (17).

When time came to go to see TED, Natasha was sleeping. This is a good
thing, I think, because I knew she hadn't had a chance to empty her
bladder recently and so the techs would be able to get a good urine
sample from her. I picked her up and had her in her carrier before I
think she knew what was happening.

The way it works at my vet, you see the receptionist first. She
(they're all women) gets the file, and then makes notes for the doctor
about why you're there (pink sheets for girl pets, blue sheets for boy
pets). If the top page of the file isn't full, they add the new notes
to the bottom, if it is full they put a new sheet in and put the new
notes on that. Natasha was there for her quarterly checkup and her
annual shots, and this was added to the bottom of the existing top
page. It took a bit for me to convince the receptionist that Natasha
gets *annual* shots because she had a bad reaction to the 3-year type
a while back.

Now we're in the exam room, and Natasha is not happy. She's yet
another in a long line of kitties and d*ggies that don't like this
place. I requested that we see a very good doctor, Dr. Grant, who is
the one who's been following her kidney problems all along. A lot of
people like Dr Grant, so we had to wait a bit, making Natasha even
more unhappy.

Dr Grant arrives, and starts to go through Natasha's file. She reads
the top page of the file, then reads it again. And then reads it
again. Now I'm curious - and it turns out that the top page in
Natasha's file is for a Jack Russell Terrier. How'd that get in there?
Who knows... but Dr Grant guessed it was misfiled earlier in the week
when they computers went down and everything had to be done manually.
(before we left Natasha's file had a new top sheet with the correct
notes - no idea if they figured out which JRT was missing notes in her
file)

Dr Grant does her hands-on exam. Did I mention Natasha wasn't happy?
She even did a hiss-spit, and she *never* does a hiss-spit! Dr Grant
took her to the "back room" for taking of urine, blood, and fecal (I
forgot to raid the litter box) samples, and to get her shots. After a
while I hear a cat being vocal from the direction of the "back room":
rrreow    Rrreeoooowww   RRRREEEEOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!

The vet tech brought Natasha back to me and said she was very good
about everything - except the taking of the fecal sample, at which
point she got a bit "squirmy and loud" (I think I'd be more than a bit
squirmy and loud if someone was doing that to me). I was also thanked
for trimming Natasha's nails (first time someone's done that).

Most tests are analyzed in-house, so it was only about 20 minutes for
the results to come back. While we waited in the lobby (Natasha was
back in her carrier, a friendly yellow lab (about 2 years old) was
making the rounds in our area. Natasha did such a hiss-spit on him
from her carrier that he actually jumped backward about 3 feet and
everyone in the room turned to look (and chuckle). At which point the
yellow lab starts barking at Natasha (the d*g's owner said that there
are 2 kitties that boss him around at home, so he probably thought he
was being brave back-talking a kitty that wasn't able to do anything
to him)

Natasha's test results: everything looked good, no infections found.
As for her kidneys, the BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen) value was actually
in the normal range, while her Creatinine value was staying about
where it has been, just slightly high from the normal range. Dr Grant
added "Oh, and she might be in this mood she's in because her bladder
is *really* full right now".

So I'm to keep hydrating Natasha once or twice a week as needed, and
bring her back in 3 months for another checkup, but everything this
time was perfectly normal for her :)

The doctor and techs escaped another unhappy patient relatively
unscathed. And Natasha made a beeline to the litter box when we
returned home   >^.^<

Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

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