Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

[Maristar87]

Last summer, Socks, my eighteen year old cat passed away. I had moved away to attend college and get married, so she was left with my grandmother and lived there happily with a few other senior-aged cats and dogs. I never got to say goodbye, she died before I could manage to save up money and make the thousand-mile journey to visit her.

Obviously, I was heartbroken and after a period of mourning, my husband and I decided that we were financially able to take care of a pet. I found an animal shelter's website online and looked at all our options. I thought I'd found a perfect pet, a gray tabby named Tiger. However, when we got down to visit the shelter, we found out that Tiger was a special needs animal. He had epilepsy, and needed an owner with more of a stable home-life and better income (ideally, someone would stay at home with him at all times.) We picked another cat, a fluffy white ball of fuzz with orange features and bright blue eyes. I was pretty surprised he was there, because he looked amazingly well-groomed and he had to be some kind of purebred animal. While all the other cats howled, he just sat there and stared vacantly at us.

We signed the paperwork for him, and we brought him home a few days later. When we brought him to the vet for his first check-up, we were given some bad news. He had a genetic heart defect, a terrible murmur and wouldn't make it to see ten years of age... actually, he could go any time without warning. Our vet seemed rather angry and told us that any decent shelter would have had him properly examined and they should have never charged us any kind of fee for him. She did warn us though that we should never let him go back, they would kill him, even though he wasn't in any pain. He wasn't considered adoptable, even as a special needs case.

We took him home and cried for a bit, and during our time with him he had a few scares, he played too rough and his heart skipped a beat and lack of oxygen to the brain caused him to faint, so we had to monitor him closely and we took away most of his toys. Still, he was a very happy and affectionate cat and he still is to this day. He's almost 4 years old now, and we renamed him "Khan" since he didn't seem to respond to his shelter-given name.

Right now, we're looking for a cardiologist nearby that'll give us more of an insight on how to help him. The animal hospital is about an hour away though and I don't want to put him through that kind of stress. I emailed the veterinary professor at my college and he says that there's not much I can do for him, and I should just focus on spoiling him.

Any tips/advice? I honestly wasn't prepared to take care of such a sick kitty, but we're managing. His heart condition is called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. I took out a bunch of books from our library about his breed and his health issues but it's all in laymen's terms and I'm not finding anything of value. It's really frustrating, I already know what to feed him, how to handle a cat, and where his organs are... I want something more than that.

[Odie]

I have no tips nor advice, I think you have done above and beyond for

this cat as no one else would have.



keep up the great work with kitty!