So yeah, the backache came back, and I gave up and went in to the doctor. (It's a good thing the doctor's office isn't far from here.) They set me up with one of the nurse-practitioners.

She listened to my description of the pain, and poked at my back to make sure she couldn't feel any lumps or hot-spots that would indicate a severe injury, and she did the rest of the exam and said I wasn't dialated at all, so it's not the beginnings of labor. So she's sending out for some tests to make sure it isn't a bladder or kidney infection, but she thought, really, it was just a pulled or strained muscle that I was just going to have to wait out.

Joy. So, um, yeah. I might be doing some whining for the next few days. Just to warn you.

The amusing thing for this visit - this exam took place in the "upstairs" section of the practice, where I haven't been for several months. The upstairs has a slightly more spacious weigh-in area, as well as the kind of medical scales I'm used to seeing, as opposed to the downstairs section, which has a pair of digital scales that are squished into corners that are practically impossible to get to after the 7th month of pregnancy.

So last Thursday, when I went in, the squashed digital scale downstairs said I was at about seven pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. (It's been the really good news of my pregnancy, that I've gained so little weight - given the weight of the baby and all of her support gunk, like amniotic fluid and the placenta, it means that I'm actually losing weight, overall.)

Yesterday - four days later, mind you - I got on the medical scales upstairs, and they had me at fifteen pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. So either I gained eight pounds in five days - highly unlikely, even given all the weird factors - or one of those scales is off a bit.

I have a bad feeling I know which one it is, too. (I'm trying to console myself that 15 pounds isn't very much, for 8 months pregnant, either. I just won't lose all of it the instant the baby is born.)

Matt took the cat to the vet Monday, and the vet expressed some concern about Diamond's weight. Six years ago, the cat weighed thirteen pounds. Two years ago, he weighed a little less than nine. (When I asked about the weight drop then, I got brushed off.) Monday, he weight just about six and a half.

He's lost half his weight in six years - and Diamond is a largish cat. Thirteen pounds wasn't especially overweight for his frame. So the vet (a different one from the one who brushed me off) was concerned, and ran a battery of moderately expensive tests.

The results? He has a hyperthyroid condition (which is the reverse of my hypothyroid condition) which is making his metabolism burn much higher than it needs to. It's eaten through most of the fat on his body and is starting to break down his muscle tissue. He's also showing some kidney misfunction and a little bit of anemia - both of which are probably side-effects of the hyperactive thyroid.

So the vet gave us some special food to give him to help balance out his kidneys, and a prescription for a thyroid suppressant that we have to fill at a regular pharmacy, and some vitamin drops to put some iron back in his blood until the thyroid meds start doing their job.

Luckily for us, Diamond decided he really likes the new food. Hopefully he'll continue snarfing it up like a little furry pig and won't notice when we start putting half a pill in it every morning. He's not as crazy about the vitamin drops, though...

Matt came into the living room after that first dose last night and said, "You know how when you get liquid medicine, it always says something like, Great Cherry Taste! and you have to mentally downgrade that to red and vaguely fruit-flavored, but mostly nasty? Yeah. The vitamin drops advertise themselves as palatable."

--Liz