well
The news on Marzy's heart is both bad and hopeful.
Technical version: he has hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
His heart murmur is real, and it's disease-related rather than "functional" (the kind a cat can just live with). Basically, one of his heart valves isn't working correctly. Because of this, his heart is overworking, which means the muscle is thicker than usual (a bad sign). This thickening has pulled one of his valves into the wrong position. It doesn't close properly (causing the murmur), and it also gets into a weird position when open, blocking a lot of bloodflow in his heart.
The hopeful news is that often, blockages like this can be helped with medicine. The meds can help calm his heart down, which will both thin the walls AND help that valve "reset" itself to the right position. So today, Marzy has started beta blockers. LOL.
He'll go back in two weeks for another evaluation, during which they'll check his response and possibly re-titrate his dose. And if nothing has happened... we'll discuss further options. But the doctor seemed moderately hopeful that the valve would respond to the meds, so I am too.
We caught this early. He's only 1yr 4mo, and the doctor said that she doesn't see any signs of the chambers of his heart actually enlarging (a really bad sign). If he responds to the pills, chances are he's going to be okay. ♥
He'll be on the drug for life. He takes a dose twice a day. I'm not yet sure what this means for me - can I still travel? Can I go somewhere overnight? Is he going to be okay? Am I going to have to pay for a pet-sitter every time I want to go to Pittsburgh? Do I have to take him into a vet for overnight? Is it going to cost me hundreds of dollars just to see my family?
But these things aren't worth worrying about right now. All I'm focused on is making my poor kitty better.
This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/39758.html, which has
comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.
Technical version: he has hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
His heart murmur is real, and it's disease-related rather than "functional" (the kind a cat can just live with). Basically, one of his heart valves isn't working correctly. Because of this, his heart is overworking, which means the muscle is thicker than usual (a bad sign). This thickening has pulled one of his valves into the wrong position. It doesn't close properly (causing the murmur), and it also gets into a weird position when open, blocking a lot of bloodflow in his heart.
The hopeful news is that often, blockages like this can be helped with medicine. The meds can help calm his heart down, which will both thin the walls AND help that valve "reset" itself to the right position. So today, Marzy has started beta blockers. LOL.
He'll go back in two weeks for another evaluation, during which they'll check his response and possibly re-titrate his dose. And if nothing has happened... we'll discuss further options. But the doctor seemed moderately hopeful that the valve would respond to the meds, so I am too.
We caught this early. He's only 1yr 4mo, and the doctor said that she doesn't see any signs of the chambers of his heart actually enlarging (a really bad sign). If he responds to the pills, chances are he's going to be okay. ♥
He'll be on the drug for life. He takes a dose twice a day. I'm not yet sure what this means for me - can I still travel? Can I go somewhere overnight? Is he going to be okay? Am I going to have to pay for a pet-sitter every time I want to go to Pittsburgh? Do I have to take him into a vet for overnight? Is it going to cost me hundreds of dollars just to see my family?
But these things aren't worth worrying about right now. All I'm focused on is making my poor kitty better.
This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/39758.html, which has
comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.