I took the cats in for their checkup last week and just got the followup call from the vet. They both have kidney issues--their BUN and creatinine tests were slightly elevated, and cats tend not to show even these elevations until they've lost 75% of kidney function. The first step is switching to a different feed, but I always worry about that because they have a tendency to swallow small kibble without crunching it first--with luck the one the vet suggests will be in big pieces. Leo also has hyperthyroidism, which we'd suspected--he was less than ten pounds for the first time since he was a kitten. He'll get meds for that--though there's the possibility that will put more stress on his kidneys. (Lego seems to have a bit of it too, but his numbers haven't changed as much since last year and he hasn't lost as much weight, so we're going to hold off on meds for him now.)
Emotionally it would have been nice to have the electrical system in the house fixed before I knew for sure that the cats were busted...
The vet did crack me up, though, as she suggested that when I bring Leo in for a blood followup I be sure that she and one particular tech would be in. "He's... difficult to take blood from." Learning from his brother, he is.
melancholy