Dodged a bullet

I took Thor to Cape Fear Animal Hospital, where he has been seen for his usual checkups for most of the last ten years or so.

I breathed a gargantuan sign of relief that there was nothing terminally wrong with him other than the fact that he has nothing that warranted invasive surgery. After a complete blood count and two x-rays, he apparently has spondylosis, which would explain why he has been slowing down as of late, why he was hurting around his back, and why when he lies down at night that it's marked by a thump, not the smooth movement that I associated with him when I first met him six years ago.

The spondylosis, combined with arthritis throughout, contributed to his lethargy since he was feeling some substantial pain to not be able to move around. I don't have a problem with feeding him NSAIDs for the rest of his life if it means that he'll have a much greater quality of life because he's not in pain just moving around.

The alarming thing in the last 18 hours was his not moving around at all, or his total lack of appetite. At the risk of sounding hypochondriac (about Thor, at least), all the hubbub brought a hell of a lot of peace of mind.

I know my time with Thor is limited, so I should probably start investing some more time with him while we still have his company. He may have his quirks, but it's the absence of those quirks last night and this morning that really scared the hell out of me.

I thank the staff at CFAH for their professionalism and their compassion in what was a difficult episode, at least for me.