My Radioactive Cat: When Intuition Matters

I was hoping my horrific 2014 would not carry over into 2015, but that was wishful thinking. Instead, I now have a radioactive cat. So what does that have to do with intuition? Well, pretty much everything.

Last October I looked at Grace the Cat and my intuition was literally screaming at me. I knew something was wrong with her, but didn’t know what, only knew that I had the same feeling back in December 2011 when I looked at Murphy and felt the world drop away: I knew I was losing her, and a few days later, when the medical tests showed a serious illness but I still wasn’t satisfied, I insisted on an X-ray—and they found cancer. Because I listened to my intuition, Murphy and I had quality time to say goodbye.

So in October I took Grace the Cat to her vet and said I had the same bad feeling I did about Murphy. My vet knows me by now, so his response was, “Oh, gosh, I hope not!”

I insisted Grace was hyperthyroid, but the tests came back borderline.  Four days later she became violently ill and needed three days of subcutaneous fluids and meds—and suddenly had a heart murmur.

I still insisted she was hyperthyroid, so my vet consulted the lab’s internists, and they said her thyroid was borderline, but because she had a high CPK value, which indicated muscle damage, and she now had a heart murmur, she probably had heart disease. That’s how Grace the Cat was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy on the same day that my beloved dog, Alki, died, Nov. 17, 2014. Grace’s disease is completely hereditary (more common in mixed breed cats than in pedigreed ones, which is why from now on all my animals will be purebreds), and mild. She was expected to live a long life.

But I still wasn’t satisfied. On February 9, 2015, Grace was acting odd, so she was back at the vet. I told him I felt even worse than I did about Grace in October, and, alarmed, he ordered an extensive battery of tests. As a result, Grace was finally diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, which my intuition insisted on last October. I had good reason to be concerned about losing her, since it is a life-threatening illness already compounded by heart disease.

Not only did the medication make her worse, but I felt worse, too. There was something not right about the whole thing, so my wonderful friend Cathy and I did a lot of research. Turns out the medicine they had Grace on often causes the heart disease she already has, plus a lot of other nasty things. The only safe alternative is the most expensive: radioiodine treatment. So Monday morning, Feb. 23, I found a well-regarded clinic in Seattle which only treats hyperthyroid cats and lit a fire under them and my vet: I insisted that Grace would not survive the week without immediate treatment. An hour later Grace had an appointment for Thursday morning.

When I took her in, with new tests in hand, the attending vet pointed out that Grace was already indicating changes in her kidneys, although her tests were still normal. She gave Grace a low dose of radioiodine, and said it was possible her heart murmur would go away and her heart disease moderate. Grace spent two days in the hospital until her radiation levels dropped, and today, Saturday, she is home again.

For two days I had a house without animals in it for the first time in 17 years. The good news: Grace the Cat is most likely cured, although she needs to be tested at one and three months. Then we pursue the hunt for our new Cavalier puppy, who calls himself Oliver and is quite vocal about my work and his—and he isn’t even born yet! Oh my!

Why Your Intuition Matters

Recently I taught my class on intuition, and I insisted that intuition is non-rational and non-empirical, and that’s true. Put all the evidence together, see what your intuition says, and then act on it. While Grace clearly didn’t look or act as well as usual, she was also not showing typical signs of hyperthyroidism. I pushed anyway because that’s what I do—follow my intuition. I’m hoping it saves Grace’s life. The radioiodine treatment cures the disease 98.5% of the time, but is hugely expensive and requires hospitalization until the radiation level drops, and then less lap time with her for a few weeks. We’ll get through that.

The question for you is, When does your intuition speak to you, and how?

The four intuitive clairs are seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing. For me, knowing is my strongest clair, but all the others are active, too. I’m not always right, but no one is. Still, I always pay attention to what I get from my intuition.

“It doesn’t make sense,” was an objection from one of my class attendees recently. She was frustrated because she thought she was wrong, when in fact, she was brilliantly intuitive. The problem is, she was also exactly correct: frequently, our intuition doesn’t make sense, which is when we need to dig down and pay attention. Grace’s behavior and appearance were not indicating hyperthyroidism, but I insisted, and I was right.

Please, the next time you let your intuition speak to you, and it doesn’t make sense, dig deep. Do some research. Even call us for a brief appointment. But above all, check it out. It may help you choose a healing food that you would never have explored otherwise, or it may save somebody’s life. You may even be wrong, which I will always say is a good thing: knowing when an intuitive hit takes you in the wrong direction will help you when you need it to steer you correctly. The one thing you should never do is ignore it.

Believe in yourself. Believe in your intuition. It matters.

© 2015 Robyn M Fritz