STELLLLAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

The title of my blog seemed relevant again today. No, Spartacus hasn't relapsed or anything. Today it is his sister, Stella, that reluctantly came to work with me today. Very reluctantly, actually. I had to crawl under the bed and grab hold of her tail (dang, don't tell her vet!) so she wouldn't run away again, finally stuffed her into the carrier and got her into the hospital. Maybe she associates the carrier and the car with going to cat shows when she was younger. Stella was, and still is, a gorgeous Maine Coon cat, and it was with extreme pride that I took her to several cat shows to show her off. She HATED it. I had only shown two other cats before her, and for only a very short time, so I saw the huge difference between cats who genuinely loved the attention, all the primping, combing, fluffing up (I doubt any cat really likes the bath part..) and Stella. They would come to the front of their cages, reaching out to passers by, meowing and purring, arching their back for the petting by the judge, playing with offered toys, really strutting their stuff. Stella hunched in the back of the display cage, crouched into a ball when the judge picked her up, and trembled with fear when it was all over. Needless to say, her show career didn't last long.

Stella has been coughing for a while now, but recently she has been doing it every day. It is one of those harsh, hacking coughs, non-productive, where she extends her whole neck out and down as if she is going to pass a hairball-but she only rarely does that. I have been combing her a lot to try and decrease the amount of hair she might ingest, but that didn't reduce the coughing episodes. I have found that I don't tend to do a very thorough job when I "examine" my pets at home, so off to the hospital she went today.

Her nurses weighed her and took her temperature-all was fine there. She isn't fat like her brother, Spartacus. I listened to her heart and lungs-other than having an elevated heart rate, likely due to fear, her chest sounded fine. Her oral exam was great-Stella has been a fortunate pedigreed cat in that her teeth and gums have always been healthy with minimal care on my part. Many of my other "pure-bred" cats haven't been as lucky, often having severe orodontal disease. I could elicit or cause a mild cough when I palpated Stella's neck, but it wasn't anything like the harsh, extended neck episodes she does at home. I wasn't convinced the issue was with her neck or throat. Her abdomen palpated fine, and the rest of her exam was normal as well.

Since Stella wasn't readily letting on the cause of her cough, I decided to pursue some further diagnostic tests while I had her here. Her nurses drew some blood for a general panel and CBC (complete blood count.) They also took chest radiographs, but since she is small, most of her body fit on the x-ray plates. We got good views of her abdomen, too. Her blood work showed one value a bit elevated-the CK or creatine kinase, a muscle enzyme. It can be elevated for many reasons, often from trauma to muscles as happens after being hit by a car or after a grand mal seizure, or the CK can be high when there is heart disease. The heart is muscle, after all. I've also seen it elevate after soft tissue trauma, such as after surgery. The value can change rapidly, so a single elevated value should be taken with a grain of salt. I will likely repeat it periodically to see if it is a trend (for it to be rising) or if it is actually on the way back down. But I did have two relatives of Stella (half brothers) die from heart failure at very young ages, so you can bet I will be watching this value. Coughing can certainly be a symptom of heart disease.

Her chest radiographs were more concerning. It looked like there were some fuzzy patches or splotches in her lung fields-possible masses? These could be anything from bacterial or fungal infection, (pretty rare in this area) parasites, (lung worms?) changes from asthma, or (gulp!) even cancer. Stella would be awfully young for this, (she is 5 1/2 years old) but we have seen that cancer can do any darned thing it wants to, so we have to put it on the list of rule-outs. I decided not to panic (yet!) and sent the films to the radiologist for interpretation. It will only be another day or two to find out what he thinks and then I can make a plan to treat her. I sure don't want to jump to any conclusions, but you can imagine my mind is going in a hundred different directions thinking of worst case scenarios.

Stella will be more than happy to hop into that carrier now. She certainly knows it means she is getting the heck out of here, back to her buddy, Spartacus, waiting at home for her. I feel bad I waited so long to bring her in and deal with this cough, but just like any other pet owner, I knew how much she hated "going to the vet," what a pain she was going to be to medicate if that's what we decide to do for her, and I was honestly hoping it would just get better on its own. Where have I heard that before? I'll be sure to keep you posted on what the final diagnosis is, if we do indeed come up with one, and how she does with everything. Sometimes it really sucks being a vet's cat!

Peace,
DrReneigh