(no subject)
AGH and this is an irregular installment in I-generally-only-write-in-here-when-bad-things-happen.
So, I only barely ended up deciding not to leave for home until this morning instead of yesterday afternoon. Dad's getting a lung taken out on Friday. So, already not inconsiderable stress levels.
Literally just gotten to sleep when roommate wakes me up because there's something wrong with one of the kittens. Arthur was dragging her back legs and in pain and breathing really hard and it was generally Not Good in that way that you just sort of know when you look at the symptoms, this is not going to end well.
So, 3:30am trip to the emergency vet and it turns out she had her mother's heart murmur times a billion and somehow in only 13 months of life managed to build up enough hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that she threw a clot that got caught in the pelvic saddle (junction of the aorta and iliac arteries, for those who are more human-oriented like myself). I should have noticed that her back feet were cold, but we were still sort of hoping it was some kind of sudden onset hip dysplasia or something. As soon as the vet pointed that out, though, it was pretty obvious what had happened.
With the other heart stuff, it didn't make it worth it to try and treat the clot because chances are that it would reoccur within months, so basically we spent an hour crying and then had her put down. Which I'd never actually seen happen before; both of my dogs just died, and when they told me they had to put my bird down when I was a kid, I literally put my fingers in my ears and ran away and locked myself in my mom's car in the parking lot. So, that was . . . umm, intense. The actual putting down wasn't too bad, and I mean, I'm okay with it because I know that she was in pain and all that, but when the vet picked her up and she still just looked . . . normal, I mean, that was super hard. Could not handle. Still cannot handle thinking about.
Of course, on top of it all, remember how we already knew the mom had a heart murmur? Hers may be asymptomatic thus far, but it's caused by an autosomal dominant mutation that's prevalent in Persians (like the mom) and Maine Coons (like Arthur and Merlin are partially). So there's a pretty strong chance that one of the other kittens has some early stage of it as well. (I pretty much won't believe it if Merlin doesn't have some degree of this, because the odds of him having the mutation are just too high. There's penetrance and such to take into account, so he may not present, but I really really want to just put all of them on asprin and super low sodium diets and perhaps digoxin and such anyway because jesus fuck this is horrible.)
So, yeah. Lovely. I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep before we had to go to the vet, and I can't get back to sleep right now because my cheeks are literally rubbed raw from crying and I'm nauseated and just generally miserable. A large part of me wants to just get on the road back to Saint Louis because I have to get the other two kittens to the vet and get my car fixed before Friday and I'm not really tired, but I should be, and I'm afraid the exhaustion will hit me halfway there and make it even tougher.
Also, I think Merlin knows. He was searching around for a while after we got back, and when he went to sleep, kept cuddling the other kitten really closely in the way he always did to Arthur. It's going to be fabulous putting him in the crate to drive him across the state and to the vet, because he always does this plaintive cry thing that should be annoying but always ends up making me sad for him anyway, and now I've just heard Arthur do that for an hour and a half before she died and I cannot handle hearing it again right now or probably ever.
So, I only barely ended up deciding not to leave for home until this morning instead of yesterday afternoon. Dad's getting a lung taken out on Friday. So, already not inconsiderable stress levels.
Literally just gotten to sleep when roommate wakes me up because there's something wrong with one of the kittens. Arthur was dragging her back legs and in pain and breathing really hard and it was generally Not Good in that way that you just sort of know when you look at the symptoms, this is not going to end well.
So, 3:30am trip to the emergency vet and it turns out she had her mother's heart murmur times a billion and somehow in only 13 months of life managed to build up enough hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that she threw a clot that got caught in the pelvic saddle (junction of the aorta and iliac arteries, for those who are more human-oriented like myself). I should have noticed that her back feet were cold, but we were still sort of hoping it was some kind of sudden onset hip dysplasia or something. As soon as the vet pointed that out, though, it was pretty obvious what had happened.
With the other heart stuff, it didn't make it worth it to try and treat the clot because chances are that it would reoccur within months, so basically we spent an hour crying and then had her put down. Which I'd never actually seen happen before; both of my dogs just died, and when they told me they had to put my bird down when I was a kid, I literally put my fingers in my ears and ran away and locked myself in my mom's car in the parking lot. So, that was . . . umm, intense. The actual putting down wasn't too bad, and I mean, I'm okay with it because I know that she was in pain and all that, but when the vet picked her up and she still just looked . . . normal, I mean, that was super hard. Could not handle. Still cannot handle thinking about.
Of course, on top of it all, remember how we already knew the mom had a heart murmur? Hers may be asymptomatic thus far, but it's caused by an autosomal dominant mutation that's prevalent in Persians (like the mom) and Maine Coons (like Arthur and Merlin are partially). So there's a pretty strong chance that one of the other kittens has some early stage of it as well. (I pretty much won't believe it if Merlin doesn't have some degree of this, because the odds of him having the mutation are just too high. There's penetrance and such to take into account, so he may not present, but I really really want to just put all of them on asprin and super low sodium diets and perhaps digoxin and such anyway because jesus fuck this is horrible.)
So, yeah. Lovely. I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep before we had to go to the vet, and I can't get back to sleep right now because my cheeks are literally rubbed raw from crying and I'm nauseated and just generally miserable. A large part of me wants to just get on the road back to Saint Louis because I have to get the other two kittens to the vet and get my car fixed before Friday and I'm not really tired, but I should be, and I'm afraid the exhaustion will hit me halfway there and make it even tougher.
Also, I think Merlin knows. He was searching around for a while after we got back, and when he went to sleep, kept cuddling the other kitten really closely in the way he always did to Arthur. It's going to be fabulous putting him in the crate to drive him across the state and to the vet, because he always does this plaintive cry thing that should be annoying but always ends up making me sad for him anyway, and now I've just heard Arthur do that for an hour and a half before she died and I cannot handle hearing it again right now or probably ever.