My DJ is not any better. His heart murmur is worse and he is still battling some sort of infection that causes him to stay stuffed up. We waited for almost 2 hours today to see Dr Ellington – the best of the vet chicks at Dearborn – and she spotted a mass of some kind near his heart in the xrays from last time. Tobias totally missed it. Well, she either totally missed it or didn’t want to say anything. She is VERY sweet, but also tends to sugar coat things a bit much for my taste. I just want to KNOW so I can keep my emotions in check until I get to the root of the issue. I’m barely hanging onto my shit today… My heart is VERY heavy.
After the thorough exam and looking over the films from 10 wks ago, Dr Ellington told me that DJ was definitely throwing “red flags” and she’s very concerned. She said his murmur is the worst she’s EVER heard in a cat – it’s more like a good sized poodle. NOT GOOD. She’s also concerned about the mass… She’s thinking cancer, I know she is. Gods, I hope it’s not that. There’s no coming back from that for a 11.5 year old cat.
So, next week we’re off to St Francis over on Dekalb Ind for his full thorax ultrasound. That will tell us exactly what’s going on with him and if that mass is lymph nodes or cancer or what.
All I know is that DJ is not in pain (other than arthritis) and he’d be a lot happier if he could breathe. We’ve got him on another run of antibiotics to try and beat back the nasal infection and we’ll continue his other meds. He’s always been a lazy boy, but I think the heart murmur has really taken what little zip he had. He sleeps and/or lays down about 95% of the time now. Poor baby!
If everyone would send my sweet old cat some good health vibes, I’d appreciate it.
