cardiomyopathy

[blackmagik]

Hi, I'm new here...just searching for others who are caring for their cat living with cardiomyopathy. My baby black 'Dot' was diagnosed in October 2014. 

I came home from work one very hot evening and found her laying on the floor stretched out, so I lay down with her and express to her....'oh it is just too hot for you isn't it! It's too hot for me! She got up to eat, as that is what my two aging feral cats do when I get home. I watched her. Her breathing seemed a little too rapid. I watched her jump out the window and sit on the roof. I decided that I should take her in. Of course it was evening and had to go to emergency. There it was determined that she had plural infusion related to cardiomyopathy. I asked what I was to expect with this disease. Would she be in pain? would she suffer? I was told that her heart would just stop. I could live with that so I agreed to estimate we began treatment to remove fluid and place her in oxygen cage.

She is on the medication that a human would take with heart disease. Lasix, Plavix, enalipril, potassium and one 'off label' medicine 'vetmedin'.

  She is doing remarkable well. However; after spending a bazillion dollars at emergency, I decided to purchased my own oxygen cage should Dot need to have that treatment again, as most of the cost of the emergency care was providing the oxygen therapy for an extended period until her breathing returned to a normal rate. So far, I she has been in the oxygen cage 4 times for about 2 hours, since her 2 day stay in the hospital in October. My Dot now has a cardiologist whom she visits every other month. I never thought I would ever say that! Sounds like it should be a bumper sticker "my cat has a cardiologist"!

I just wanted to say that this is a horrible disease.

Dot came to me 13 years ago when my friend was trapping, altering and releasing the feral cats in our neighborhood. When she trapped the babies, she gave them to me to socialize and find homes for. Dot was one of the 'older' babies and she did not want to be domesticated. She was mean and vicious. So I let her go and told her that she would be caught when she grows up. She quickly ran away.

Then night came and I heard a howling at the window of the garage. ( The garage is where I had my cages when I had multiple kittens to socialize)

It was my baby black Dot wanting in. I let her back in to roam as she pleased and left the window open.

It took about two months for her to rub up against my legs. But she still wouldn't let me touch her. Maybe two weeks later, she finally let me pet her. She grew to be the most affectionate cat I've ever had. She reaches out her paw to touch my face when I'm reading or working on the computer, almost to say...."excuse me....excuse me....but I need....." Such a delightful creature. She has a little white dot on her belly, hence the name Dot. My older feral cat is 17, almost blind and has never liked Dot. I don't know why.....maybe she has some jealousy issues. When they are laying next to me, Dot will stretch out and extend her arms towards the older "baby Girl" just close enough not to touch her. Baby Girl will then hiss, spit and cry, almost like two human children "She's touching me!!!!She's touching me!".

Today, Baby Girl knows something is not right with Dot and is now very gentle and caring. Although if Dot wants to play, Baby Girl will still have none of it. I think it is because she is mostly blind and arthritic and is not so sure of herself anymore.

About the disease. For a few weeks, Dot will be behaving like her old self....stalking birds on the roof, catching a house mouse (which she brings me live and I must then catch and put outside....I know, I know....I'm a little crazy) and breathing normally.  Then one day she will be in distress struggling to breathe. I give her oxygen. Her breathing becomes a little better. I tell her good-bye when I leave for work, give a big hug and kiss and say I hope to see you when I come home.

She gradually gets better and is her old self again. Then we go through this all over again. And again. It's a heartbreaking disease. Sometimes I wonder if it is better for those who lost their precious kitty to this disease, to lose them suddenly.  I don't know....I don't think I can take it either way. I love my baby black Dot, but I die a little bit each time I watch her struggle to breathe. Then rejoice when she runs around the house like a kitten again!

Anybody out there who has experience with this disease? I know the prognosis is not good, but would like to know of others experience. Thanks!

Kind regards

 

[red top rescue]

As I told you in an earlier private message, I copied your post to a friend who is not a member of this group because she has had quite a lot of experience with this disease, first because she adopted a family of cats who all developed it and one at a time they each died by age 5 years.  I didn't know her until the first three had passed, and one more passed after I knew her.  Recently she was keeping a foster cat for our local humane rescue group and this cat had it.  She could not be adopted out, but my friend chose to keep her and give her a good life for as long as she had.  As I told you, she did not have an oxygen chamber like you have, but she did take the cat for the same therapies yours got, and the cat would get better and worse and better again as yours has.  The hardest part is deciding when there is more bad time than good time, or even a danger of more bad time.

I had sent her a copy of your post.  Her response was short but heartfelt:

"Eeek and ugh    my stance is like yours, give them good days until you can't anymore and don't let them have any bad days if you're given a choice.

Especially at the end, heart disease is painful    "

I can tell you that at the end, with her last one, she had actually taken the cat to the vet hospital to be put to sleep on a Saturday afternoon (her usual vet was not on duty and a young, less experienced vet was) and the vet talked her out of it (we always want to hope, an so do they) and gave the cat fluids and maybe steroids and sent her home.  They close at 2:00 on Saturdays.  She went home but within a couple of hours her poor kitty was gasping for air and turning blue, it turns out the fluid had gone right to her lungs (as shown in a follow-up x-ray taken at the next vet's office).  She called her regular practice where she had been just hours before, and where vets have indeed met us for emergencies, but it the vet on call from another branch would not come in an told her to go to the emergency hospital instead.  She knew the standard emergency animal hospital's euthanasia techniques were not what we consider the most humane, i.e. they would NOT just presedate the cat and let it fall into deep pre-op sleep in your arms over the next 10-15 minutes, but they would take it to another room and insert a catheter in the vein (painful and difficult with a cat already having trouble breathing) and then bring the cat back to you if you wanted to hold it while it was put to sleep, NO presedation (i.e. sparing the client but not the animal!) or else they would euthanize it out of your presence (unacceptable to us) -- she knew of another animal hospital that was open later than her usual one so she went there, but before doing that she was able to give the cat a shot of butorphan (a feline pain medicine which another rescuer brought her) and 1 mg. of ativan (a tranquilizer/anti-anxiety medicine, double the normal cat dose), and that got the cat relaxed and not struggling for air and able to actually enjoy the trip.  The vet at the next hospital did a free x-ray to compare with the one taken earlier  (which my friend had photographed with her phone!) she agreed the cat was worse and should go to sleep.  After a small battle about the technique [again their standard practice was to insert a catheter into the vein of a wide awake cat in the privacy of the back room an then bring it back to the owner for euthanasia] my friend won and they agreed to the presedation, and the cat passed peacefully and was brought home for burial and the usual candle placed on her grave. 

The moral of the story, she said, was that you should BE PREPARED for the worsening of the disease and spare the cat any needless suffering.  You have oxygen, which is great, but you should probably have the other things on hand also. Be sure to have a plan and work this out with your vet.  Discuss procedures ahead of time so you don't have to arrive and do battle with anyone.

In our area, there are also vets who specialize in end of life and will come to your home.  Their service is expensive but well worth it according to the clients I have spoken with.  And yes, they use presedation on cats AND dogs.

I hope this isn't too much for you to take in now, but my friend did want me to share it with you.  Her loss is too raw for her to write more than she did above, as it was just last week.  She had to fight those end of life battles but she did it and she feels good about how that turned out in the end.  She only wishes she had not let the vet at the hospital talk her out of doing the right thing a few hours earlier.  It's so hard to resist being talked out of it when you want everything to be okay, but you need to listen to your inner knowing when you know that it's time.   Our hearts are with you, and we hope she continues to have more good days than bad for a long time.

 

[blackmagik]

Thank you so much for your reply and advice. And please extend to your friend my sincere sympathy and my gratitude for taking the time to relay her experience during her most recent loss.

Kind regards,

 

[misterwhiskers]

My fathers cat had an enlarged heart. Out vet gave us taurine and he lived another 5 years. Not sure if this is the same thing but can you ask your vet if it might help?

 

[Columbine]

My heart goes out to you and Dot. I lost a cat (Cali - my avatar pic is of him before he got sick) to cardiomyopothy a year ago. The disease was pretty well advanced by the time we started treatment...He hated meds and for a long time we (including the vet) felt the stress of taking the meds outweighed the benefits of them.

He was a fighter. He had good days and bad days. I can't remember the names of his meds, but he was on diuretics to stop the fluid build up and steroids to reduce inflammation in his airways. We also needed the side effect of appetite increase from steroids to motivate him to eat. He was past the point where vetmedin was of any use.

As he declined we were advised to get an 'aerokat' inhaler for him. It's kind of like what you'd use for an asthmatic baby. He was given steroid and bronchodialators in human inhalers to use with it. They made a huge difference towards the end, and gave Cal an extra 2 months.

He had regular vet visits (sometimes every 48hrs...Thank god for insurance!) in the last months of his life, often for diuretic and/or steroid injections. He also needed vitamin B injections to stimulate his appetite.

He died naturally at the vets one night. That day he'd had a marked decline. I started doing his evening meds and he was really fighting me. He peed all over me and went into severe respiratory distress. We rushed him to the emergency vet for oxygen, but he died as they were putting him in the chamber. For the longest time I felt as though I'd killed him.

I'm now at the start of this journey with my 12 year old rescue greyhound. He started with diuretics and vetmendin, and is now just on vetmedin, with diuretics in reserve for use as needed.

I'm sorry I can't be more positive for you. Just take each day as it comes and trust yourself. Feel free to PM me if you want to.

 

[blackmagik]

Thank you so much for your kind words and support. I hope when it's Dot's time, she will go peacefully as you described as Cali's passing. When I asked the emergency vet, 'what am I to expect' and was told that her heart would just stop....I thought that was what I would have to deal with. She never mentioned what you and I know now what really happens. I found a compounding pharmacy that will make Dot's meds in liquid form, in various flavors for cats. It has made a big difference. It's easier to give and she doesn't hate me so much afterwards.

 I'm so sorry you are now going thru it again with your greyhound. I think the prognosis for dogs is better, isn't it? I certainly hope so. Anytime these creatures find us and move into our lives, it is such a gift.  How fortunate for your rescues, they have you!

warm regards,

 

[Columbine]

I'm glad you were able to get flavoured meds for Dot. They don't exist over here. I had liquid diuretic for Cal, but I had to dissolve the steroid tablets in water and syringe them in that way!

Canine prognosis isn't really much better. The main difference is that they tent to go deteriorate much faster...literally one day they're fine and the next they can't get enough breath to walk across the room. Dogs are much more likely to suddenly drop dead than cats are. In a way that's a blessing because it's quick and peaceful without any agonising decisions. On the other had you get no warning or time to prepare yourself. I just have to treat Pixie as though each day could be his last and accept that I may wake up on day to find a dead dog lying across the bottom of my bed.

Keep us posted on how Dot is doing.

 

[cprcheetah]

I have dealt with it a couple of times.  Once was with a young kitten named Misaki who just collapsed and died we did not know what was wrong with him, he was actually a rescue from an inbred kitten mill and was my current cats 1/2 brother (who was also rescued from a horrible kitten mill).  We had an autopsy done as he was only 8 years old his heart was so thickened there was no room to pump anything.  It broke my heart.  My current cat Munchie was diagnosed about a year ago he was 7 years old at diagnosis.  I took him in to have him checked for an upper respiratory infection that was chronic, and they took xrays and we found a boat load of things wrong with him, he has bad hips and a a bad front leg and needs to have surgery on them, his heart is bad and had had a severe chronic respiratory infection.  We had a specialist come and do an ultrasound on him but he was so stressed out with his breathing from the respiratory she could only do part of it but it was enough to determine he has Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.  We sedated him that day and flushed out his sinuses with 2 liters of solution, it was bad he was full of snot.  He had fluid in his lungs but that was from the respiratory infection.  We did a 2 month course of antibiotics every 3 days and started him on Diltiazem for his heart.  He has done well, you really can't tell there is anything wrong with him, he has more energy since starting him on medications.  So I do know my time with him is limited but we are keeping track of his heart rate and symptoms and so far so good (knocking on wood here).

 

[blackmagik]

Dot Update:

Hi,

I thought I'd let you know how our baby black Dot is doing 7 months after diagnosis.

This morning I heard a 'hacking' cough from Dot as she was sunning herself on the roof. I called her to come in but she was not ready. When I attempted to climb out the window to reach for her, she decided to come in on her own and headed directly for the oxygen cage. She is such a smart girl! It amazes me that she would know what to do! She jumps right in the cage which is elevated 2.5 feet. She usually is in the cage for one to two hours, every other week.

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• blackmagik
• May 3, 2015

   

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• blackmagik
• May 3, 2015

She doesn't look too happy in the cage this morning....I had just given morning medications, and she is waiting for me to close the door and turn on the oxygen.

She is still eating and drinking well. She takes her meds with much less battle now since getting the liquid medication. However; the liquid potassium didn't work well so now she is on the gel form of potassium which she takes so much more easily. Her last blood test was good, no problems due to Lasix... Dot is still 'stalking' prey and running playfully with her tail up, then rolling on her back when I catch up to her. When she sleeps next to me, I swear I think I can feel her heart beating without rhythm and overworked. Then she takes a deep breath and all seems ok again.  I know what the prognosis is and each day she stays with me, I feel so fortunate and happy. I leave for work each day, still not sure what I will come home to.......just taking it day by day as many of you have said. So far, we've had more good and happy days!

 

[Columbine]

Lovely to hear that she's relatively stable for now. They do learn what helps them...especially with breathing meds. Cal hated his aerokat - tolerated it more or less, but hated it all the same. However, if I was ever late doing it he'd come and fetch me! Cats are really smart that way. He knew he always felt better once it was done. I'm not at all surprised that Dot will take herself to her oxygen cage. She knows she always comes out feeling better than when she went in

 

[2bcat]

Just want to say this story made a real impression on me. During Amber's last months we discovered congestive heart failure mixed in with the kidney disease we were trying to treat, yet I feel like we overlooked that part and maybe lost her sooner because of it. You're really giving Dot some quality extra time and that's just fantastic. Here's hoping for many more months to come.

 

[blackmagik]

Thank you....I believe you did the right thing.  I'm new to this disease but I think treating the heart disease would eventually damage the kidneys from the variety of medications.

  I apologize for not responding sooner, as I rarely use my computer. I really do appreciate your kind wishes for Dot and am sincerely sorry for the loss of your Amber. It is just so hard......

warm regards,

 

[Columbine]

I was so glad to read that Dot's responding so well to her meds. You're doing an amazing job with her. :nod: Remember we're here whenever you need support, or if you just need to vent.

Mega vibes that Dot continues to do well