I really don't have the words, once again, I feel tired and confused, I don't know enough about this yet... I almost started crying on the way home just under the weight of everything happening.  I keep almost doing it now.

Jax is now formally diagnosed as having dialated cardiomyopathy with massive fluid retention in the abdomen and gallop rhythm.  The said "it" is early-stage, so I can only guess "it" is congestive heart failure.  I just (per orders) started him on 2.5mg Enalapril/day and 12.5 Furosemide or less as-needed; he's dozing on my bed.  Normally he'd be over here "kissing" (opening mouth & running lips along mine) and "hugging" (sitting up and putting his forearms around my neck)...

If I could afford it, I'd take him to the "good" emergency place we normally go, make sure that the first vet was on-target... Whenever B was in trouble like this, they held him overnight, so I'm not at all used to actually having this kind of problem on-hand.  It's scary... I don't have the kind of equipment a vet does to monitor or deal with crises, I just have a box full of pills.  

I need to learn about DCM in-depth now, I guess... Make sure that I do everything for him (especially right now) that is really possible, and ensure this vet got things right enough to avoid tragedy.

Tags: cardiac, cardiology, jax, prescriptions, vet "aeac"
Current Mood: crappy

I've been off in mental lala land filling out grant/aid forms, possibly getting a "yes" or two now... We got to meet Whoosey's surgeon, Dr. A today (Tuesday) to discuss her case and set up the surgical appointment. The cardiologist Dr. M tapped her to get the situation maximized for going under a general anesthetic -- hit a new record with 52ml. The physical relief was so intense that she spent the afternoon/evening being super-affectionate as if drunk on catnip.

Things are a little more complicated than I had really realized. Her pericardium and diaphragm never quite got around to separating, so instead of a tiny pericardium surrounding the heart, she has a pericardium that takes up most of her chest cavity and had a couple of abnormal-looking liver lobes develop inside of it. So the resulting job is going to be to remove the pericardium, remove the bad bits of liver, re-inflate the lungs, place a tube to drain fluid from the chest cavity, then fix the diaphragm.

Her prognosis depends entirely on what they find... Good if all goes according to plan, ranging down to "fair" if there are complications. This is assuming they don't find something truly horrifying, of course.

The operation will take 2-3 hours, starting with anesthesia at around 1pm. We're to arrive at 10am to check her in, though... So we'll check in, do whatever they want us to do up there, rush home briefly around noon to give Bastian his meds, then rush back up to the hospital to wait.

If everything goes smoothly, we'll be able to visit her briefly post-op once they have safely brought her back to a heavily sedated consciousness. Hope. Hope. Hope. I want many years cuddling with the little kitty with bunny/chinchilla fur, being kneaded, loved on...

Tags: acc, cardiology, surgery, whoosey iii
Current Mood: scared