Thursday morning I rushed Stormy to our new vet. I had mentioned that we had seen a slight improvement in his behavior for about a day or two. Then he regressed and regressed even further. It’s heartbreaking to see an animal, who is normally so full of life, just lay listlessly and barely interact with anything or anyone.
The week prior, everyone was telling me to give it time, he’s older, he’ll need more time to recuperate. But every single bone in my body knew that he was not okay and to get him to the doctor. I fought those feelings and now I wonder if that was the biggest mistake.
At the vet they gave him a full exam along with x-rays. The x-rays seemed to show that his heart was longer than it should be. Why the first vet didn’t notice this I will never know? But they did get an earful from me later that day. Next he was hooked up for an ECG. He passed with flying colors. His heart rhythm was just as it should be…but it was beating 5 times faster than a normal resting feline heart. This was disturbing. There was no way to know what was going on inside his heart without an echocardiogram. The vet was very concerned and after consulting with another vet, she thought his symptoms appeared to be Hypertrohpic Cardiomyopathy...
A “condition characterized by a thickening of the main pumping chamber of the heart (the left ventricle) and not attributed to other medical conditions (such as high blood pressure). It can, in severe cases, cause heart failure when fluid accumulates in the lungs. Blood clots, too, can form in the heart and travel to distant blood vessels obstructing blood flow to one or more limbs (especially the back legs). HCM can be mild to life-threatening.
On the x-rays his lungs looked good and their was no fluid build-up. But the back leg issues (falling over, not walking straight, lack of coordination) seemed to definitely be a likely symptom of this condition. So the vet booked us an emergency appointment with a specialist in Charlotte. Sean drove him there immediately and thankfully they took him right away. They gave him a full physical. Upon preparing him for the Echo, the doctor noticed another symptom. When he went to put Stormy on his back, he started to shake a bit. His head would bob around and he was highly uncomfortable. Add to that his tilted head, circling, rolling on to his side, drunken walking and strange eye gazing, the specialist diagnosed Stormy with some sort of Vestibular Disease.
The vestibular system is primarily responsible for keeping the head and body in the correct orientation with respect to gravity.
This system will alert the brain if we are standing, sitting, lying down, falling, spinning in circles, and keeps the body balanced. The vestibular system is comprised of nerves that start in the brain and continue to the inner ear. The sensors in the inner ear are responsible for informing the brain about any movement. Vestibular disease affects the ability of the brain to recognize abnormal body positions and also affects the brain’s ability to correct these abnormalities.
Vestibular disease typically affects older cats with an average age of 12 to 13 years. Animal afflicted with vestibular disease become suddenly very dizzy and the symptoms can be very drastic and frightening to the owner.
What to Watch For
Falling
Incoordination
Head tilt to one side or another
Circling
Rolling
Eyes continually drifting side to side or up and down
Stumbling or drunken walking
This really seems to fit his condition. I thought, wow this might really be it this time. Maybe they have finally gotten this right and we will start to get him healthy again.
The vet prescribed antibiotics as well as an anti-nausea medication. We have been administering that at 3pm and 3am for the past two days. I’ve not seen really any sign of improvement which is disheartening but I am trying to give the medicine sometime to work. If the medicine doesn’t work, it is possible that the vestibular disease is being caused by a brain tumor. MY BRAIN WILL NOT EVEN GO THERE!! We are hopeful that a brain tumor is not what is causing this since we had seen some improvement in him at one point. We’re thinking that these additional and stronger meds will kick this in the ass and we’ll have our normal healthy happy and non-drunken Stormy back soon.
Though the drunken cat walking is pretty funny. Though not as funny as it could be.
