This past May we got some bad news about Roman, our cat. We realized it had been a while since she had a check up, so we took her to the vet and the veterinarian discovered that she had a stage 3 heart murmur caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. They weren't able to see how fast the heart walls were thickening, because they didn't catch it whenever it had started, but it was pretty advanced. Instead of having a regular sinus rhythm, Roman's heart just sort of evenly went "thumpthumpthumpthumpthump". The vet said Roman had "about 350 to 1000 days" (because you know, normal people think about years in terms of number of days), but it ultimately amounted to one year to maybe three years... so either pretty quickly, or sort of living a normal cat lifespan, because she is already 9 years old at this point.
He put her on Atenolol and told us that it would manage the symptoms but couldn't treat the issue, and that he would see us again when she started showing more advanced symptoms, like coughing and difficulty moving. He cautioned us that it could move fairly quickly, but there wasn't a whole lot more that we could do right now.
Fast forward three months. Roman is terrorizing the dogs endlessly as usual. She's shown absolutely no progressing symptoms, HOWEVER she is as big as a house.
That photo doesn't quite capture it, and in fact she actually looks almost svelte in comparison to what she looks like now. Over the past month, she has ballooned! Andrew and I were a little concerned-- we've been limiting her food and making sure she doesn't have extra snacks, so we wondered if it was the medication.
Yesterday Andrew took her back to the same veterinarian to get her general fatness looked at. The following ensued:
Vet Tech: (picks up Roman to take her pulse) (pauses) Uh... you know, hold on just a minute, I'll be right back. (leaves, returns with the vet) Could you check that out for me?
Vet: Of course. (picks up Roman to take her pulse) (pauses) Well... I'll be right back. (leaves, returns with a second vet) What do you think of that?
Vet #2: (picks up Roman to take her pulse) (pauses) ... huh. That's really weird. (checks again)
Vet: (checks chart) Sounds pretty healthy for a 7-year-old heart, doesn't it?
Vet #2: It does.
Andrew: Well, she's 9 actually.
Vet: Oh! Even better! Well, we don't know why your cat doesn't have a heart murmur anymore, it seems to have resolved itself, congratulations!
SO, for reasons mysterious to us, Roman has a clean bill of health and may very well live forever at this point! The walls of her heart appear to be thinning back to normal again for some reason, so right now her biggest issue is just that she is 14 lbs. The vets said not to change her to low fat food but just be extra careful to restrict her calories... but I'm not sure we are able to control an animal that spontaneously heals itself?
In the mean time, enjoy Roman enjoying a box and a bag.
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