i'm at the in-laws for "christmas" - since all but 1 of husband's four siblings are married - getting together all on one day becomes more and more difficult. this year we elected to all get together on dec 22nd and have christmas. my MIL decided that since it wasn't really christmas then no traditional christmas dinner (turkey, stuffing, etc). instead, she made filet mignon, twice baked potatoes, hot rolls, and all the rest. i can't say i missed the turkey too terribly much. but then again, i am having it on tuesday when we head down to florida to see my side o'the family. my filet mignon was sooooo delicious.
in other, definitely not-christmasy news, i ran my new 3-legged pal (norman) by school to have him looked at by my favorite professor so that she could prescribe him some pain meds. she did a brief physical on him (something i had never done, apparently) and pointed out that he had a raging heart murmur (4/6). chyeah. seriously. i slotted him for an echocardiogram and it turns out that norman has early-onset hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve. i know, i know - you're thinking -- WHA?!
hypertrophic CM is a fancy way of saying that his heart, for some obscure reason, has decided to asymmetrically thicken (no, it had nothing to do with the trauma that broke his leg). no one knows what causes this disease, but it's much more common in older cats. the thickening causes the valves in the heart to stretch apart and open so that regurgitation through the valves occurs. on top of that, for some reason, the valves that separate his left atria from his left ventricle get sucked into the aorta when his heart contracts. so yeah, he's on heart medication now and will live a truncated life that will probably end 1 of 2 ways : with heart failure or with a thromboemoblism that will paralyze his rear legs. oops. i meant rear leg. luckily, atenolol is cheap. not great news. but he's happy and healthy now and going to live with my BF, her husband (my brother in law), and their other 2 animals.
i suppose that it's for now.
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