The Engineer’s big doofus Mystery started stumbling last week, and we freaked a bit. He’s almost eighteen and already has old-kitty kidneys, and watching him fall conk onto his side like a tree in the forest was a little alarming.
(He’s not really a doofus. He’s just an uncomplicated, big, yellow cat who has a minimum of settings: “Food?”, “Petting?”, sleeping, grooming his sister Lilly Bast, scarfing catnip, and sloping into your vicinity with an expression that says “whatcha doin’?”)
We were lucky enough to have a cats-only vet move in just up the hill a few years back, a practice I’d already been following on an Instagram account curated by one of the vet techs to show off her special needs rescue kittens, her interesting cases (“CW: surgery pictures”) and Discworld tattoos. The considered diagnosis was probable arthritis. Cats, especially kidney patients, don’t handle the equivalent of Advil et cetera very well, but they had some Chinese herbs for pain that helped immediately, and yesterday he went for his first acupuncture treatment.
My Beezler of blessed memory had miserable arthritis that was completely managed by acupuncture, which also sorted his allergies and slowed down his kidney decline, so I was right behind this. The clinic asked permission to take photos and post them on the main Instagram account, but we got a first look.
(That’s the bottom of his cat carrier he’s sitting in. He resists getting out at the vet’s. He knows.)
Is it just my imagination, or does he look… stoned?
(Acupuncture used to put me in the Twilight Zone. I’d still be doing it as a sort of spa treatment, except that my acupuncturist suffered from a vice common in the alternative health professions, or as my late and ex used to say, “the basic vice of all therapy is the therapist’s need to be considered hot shit.” Her prices I could just manage, but the incessant feeding of her ego was too exhausting. Apparently the veterinary branch of the field suffers less from this.)
He ate for the rest of the evening, which isn’t all that atypical of Mystery, but his appetite’s been less aggressive lately. News as I get it.
Sixteen Tons 
How did I miss this? My goodness… that’s unusual. Good ol’ Mystery handling it all like a champ. I hope it helps. xx
He’s already steadier on his feet. Insists on jumping down from my lap after he’s hydrated and struggles when we try to set him down gently instead, but he’s stopped falling when he manages.