On Cats

We have two very special cats. We adopted them in September of 2002 from a lovely couple in Brooklyn, Y&E, who had rescued them from a lot on Henry Street around the corner from our apartment. They are brother and sister from a two cat litter - the Alpha cat, Mae (left), who currently weighs somewhere around 18 pounds and who is on Prozac to treat her need to pee on the carpet, and Henry (right), the runt, who weighs just over 8 pounds. Henry has always had a host of health problems that tended towards the annoying rather than the serious, until yesterday.

Over the past several days we noticed he had been throwing up more than usual (his food allergies cause him to throw up a fair amount anyway, but something had definitely changed). I had some free time so I called the vet on a whim to see if she could seem yesterday morning and to my surprise, she could fit him in.

She examined him and seemed fairly confident that the symptoms were related to the food allergies, however she wanted to do X-rays to make sure he hadn't aspirated some of the food he was throwing up (because he had developed a bit of a wheeze). She was gone for a long time and when she came back she said she was sorry that she had bad news. She showed me his X-rays and explained that his heart was enlarged and that the sac containing the heart had a lot of fluid in it. She told me that she wanted me to see a cardiologist immediately and that it was
possible he could die on the way to the animal hospital.

That was not what I was expecting to hear, but I called SMS and he said he could meet me there, so off I went.

The animal hospital was a little cold for my taste, but the cardiologist seemed nice. She examined Henry and was ready to see us as right as SMS arrived. She told us that she needed to keep Henry for a few hours and explained that she was going to do some sonograms, some blood work, and, if necessary, use a needle to take away the fluid around the heart. It was about 1:30 and she asked us to come back around 5:30. We called at 3:30 and were told that his blood work was ok and they still needed to do the sonograms.

When we arrived it took them a while to see us and that made us very nervous. When the cardiologist came out she told us we couldn't bring Henry home that night because he did not let them get all the tests done that they needed to do. (He is deceptively strong!) She did however tell us what she knew:

Henry has an enlarged left atrium and a very small left ventricle due to muscular build up. What the original vet thought was fluid, and therefore an immediate situation (in that the fluid could prevent the heart from functioning), was actually all the enlarged left ventricle, which is a more serious condition in many ways, but not as immediate as his heart was still functional, though not in a completely healthy way.

As she sees it, even though she doesn't have all the data yet, it's one of two things:
-- Hyperthyroid induced heart disease
or
-- Idiopathic Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which is heart disease with
no discernible underlying cause

She believes it is more likely that it is the latter, which unfortunately is the more serious/complicated condition. In either case it will be treated with medicine, but in the case of the latter, as there is no underlying cause which can be treated, he will progressively get worse and she doesn't expect him to last a year.

And, unfortunately there is another complication: the particular heart disease/deformity he has can lead to blood clots which have the unfortunate ability to lodge near the base of the spine and cause great pain and paralysis. A clot like this almost always results in euthanasia as the there is no treatment for the pain or the paralysis.

We are hopeful we will get to bring him home today and spend some time with him here. Mae is hanging in there and we are being careful to make sure she is well looked after without her partner in crime. She actually took care of us in the middle of the night last night when SMS felt nauseous.

Today the carpet cleaners are coming in the morning and our new bed is being delivered in the afternoon. I hope I will have Henry home by then, or if not, that we can pick him up once the bed is delivered.



Think good thoughts and imagine him home with us soon.