Mr Bronx was taken to the doctor today. He’s an oldie now. Needs extra care. He’s been consistently loosing weight over the last few months, constantly hungry.

The doctor looked him over, gave him a good old poke, here and there and everywhere. She measured his weight and had a good look at his teeth. She also measured his blood pressure four times and averaged them out. She was thorough.

She then sat me down with a piece of blank A4 sheet and wrote – Hyperthyroidism. It is of 3 types – hypertrophic, benign and malignant. She drew a picture of the thyroid glands and explained what the abnormality looked like. She then went on to describe the effects of that on the heart and the kidneys.

She took me through five possible treatment options and discussed the pros and cons of each one very systematically. We decided on one of them, did the deworming, the blood tests, the vaccinations and made our way home with some tablets.

Mr Bronx was quite stressed but I was really impressed with the consultation. It took about 40 minutes and was very comprehensive. I learnt a few things I didn’t know before:

1. If humans had tails, it would be the best place to measure blood pressure.
2. Often animals are better taken care of than humans.