I Was Out Til 2am Last Night!

Too bad it's not cuz I was partying...

I brought Bethany to work with me yesterday to do chest x-rays, an EKG, and to check her thyroid. Wow. Luckily, our radiologist was there to look at her x-rays and said she had a prominant aortic arch (yeah, I don't know what that means either), and she should get an echocardiogram ASAP. Her EKG was scary. It was normal, normal, normal, then almost a flatline for 5-10 seconds, then it would kick start up again.

We called a cardiac specialist to get an emergency echo yesterday and she was willing to meet me up in Boulder at 8:30pm, but then she called back because she herself was on her way to the emergency room b/c her little boy was having trouble breathing!

So, onto Plan B... I took her up to CSU Vet Hospital on an emergency basis where they could hook her up to a continuous EKG to monitor her all night and then transfer her to cardiology this morning. Everyone is telling me that this type of arrhythmia is very rare in cats. Of course it is. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what's known as the curse of the veterinary professional. We all have animals with rare crap. It's like animals seek us out b/c they know we are suckers and will do whatever we can for them.

I'm so grateful that Joyce (friend and vet at Care) came with me for the ride. Fort Collins is about an hour drive away, and she distracted me from dwelling on how serious it was. I almost lost it when they asked me if I wanted them to resuscitate her if her heart stopped and didn't kick back in on its own. Especially when I said no. It's only a small percentage of animals that actually leave the hospital after being resuscitated, and I didn't want to put her little body through that.

So, I'm just awaiting a call from them to see what they find and what the plan is. They are talking possible pacemaker and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I will have many questions if it comes down to that. Hopefully it will just be drug therapy, but we'll see.