See blog posts from 25th May, 29th June, and 22nd September for more about all that.
As a result of this apparently miraculous healing of his thyroid, we're now in our seventh week of not giving Teddi his daily pills, although I've continued to put his kidney supplement in his food every day. Despite being off his meds, Teddi has shown no thyroid symptoms at all, but appears to be as soft and fluffy as he was eighteen months ago, before the thyroid problems began. However, not wanting to be negligent and fail to give him medication if he really needs it (hyperthyroidism left untreated can eventually cause congestive heart failure and other major health problems), I followed the vet's advice and took him in last week to re-do the blood tests for his thyroid and also for his kidneys.
The results came back today and, sure enough, his thyroid reading is still completely normal: just 29, which is well within the normal T4 thyroid range of 19 - 50. It's really true that he no longer needs to take those little pink pills every day. This is not only good news for Teddi (cats with hyperthyroidism typically only survive the condition for a year or so) but also makes life considerably simpler for me. My own decisions about ministry travel are much less complicated if I don't need to worry about finding someone who's willing to give a cat medication during my absence.
We didn't only do Teddi's thyroid test last week, but decided to re-do his kidney function test as well. We had caught his kidney insufficiency before it was too advanced (he has no symptoms yet) and have been giving him a phosphate binder to protect his kidneys. The vet said that, if there's no sign of more rapid deterioration, it wouldn't really be a problem for Teddi to go without the kidney medicine if I was travelling for a week or so. This too would simplify life when I travel; it would mean that my neighbour just needed to pop in to check on the cats' dry food and water while I was gone, and not need to mess around with mixing kidney powder into a serving of wet food. Much easier!
Well, this is where things get really amazing for my miracle boy. His kidneys were only deteriorating very slowly over the past six months; each blood test was only slightly worse than the previous one, which was a hopeful sign that Teddi could possibly live another couple of years without any loss of quality of life. Today's results, like the thyroid test, showed something that the vet had never seen before: his kidney function seems to have improved just a little (his urea level is only slightly elevated and his creatinine level is back within the normal range.) I've to start giving him his kidney supplement only once a day now, instead of twice.
Although I'd read online that kidney failure caused by injury (poison, for example) is potentially reversible if caught and treated in time, statistics show, and the vet confirmed, that normal chronic kidney deterioration rarely improves with treatment in the way that liver function can improve and repair itself. So all three vets that have seen Teddi (it's a practice with three lady vets) are pretty amazed at these blood test results. None of them have ever known a cat to recover from hyperthyroidism or renal insufficiency; in fact, they've told me it's unheard of.
So now my Teddi is not only famous for performing tricks on his YouTube channel, but also for making a miraculous recovery from two life-threatening health conditions. No one has an explanation for it - other than the fact that he was well prayed for over the past months, both by people who were with him in Spain, and people who were with me in Africa. So it's a medical mystery, but I'm enjoying having my boy back to (almost) normal, and very thankful to the Lord for this apparently miracle moggie.
Teddi's only main challenge in life now, is that his little sister, Tobi, keeps hissing at him and pouncing on him every now and then. She's only half his size, so it's a bit weird to see him being bullied by her. The vet says it's just the changing dynamic since Tamba's death earlier in the year (Tamba and Tobi used to lie together half the day) and that Tobi will eventually adjust and grow out of it. Teddi, in the meantime, seems to be set for a season of better health, and I'm daring to hope that I'm going to have him for longer than we recently thought.
