Tuesday, November 21, 2006

This really ain't Mr. Finnegan's year.

I feel like a fool for not taking Tim Finnegan in to the vet when his hair started falling out in September. It turns out that it's not a symptom of old age: he's got adrenal disease, which may or may not be due to a tumor (benign or malignant) or hyperplasia, which means the glandular cells are enlarged but functioning normally. Whatever the case, odds are that his left adrenal gland, which is far larger than it should be, will have to be removed. Dr. Jordan mentioned the option of giving Tim a shot (I can't recall the name of the medicine) once a month that might do the job, but that'll only work if the adrenal gland isn't cancerous. Ergo, I think I'm going to go ahead and have Dr. Jordan perform the surgery.

Thankfully, Mr. Finnegan doesn't seem to be suffering too much. He has lost weight, which I couldn't notice because, well, his baldness threw off my perception of his size, but he hasn't become lethargic, which is another symptom of the disease. He doesn't seem to care too much about being bald, though I reckon he'd say otherwise if he could.

I'm going to call the vet back tomorrow and schedule the surgery for sometime in the next week. More details as I get them.

On a less depressing note, Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, came out today. I've read the first 40 or so pages, and so far, so good.

2 comments:

chainlinkspiral said...

poor tim. i'll try and bring him a thanksgiving treat if he's around to eat it.

and yes, looking forward the new pynchon.

i'm also looking forward to more beers of war.

Anonymous said...

Aww, timmers!