Crisis passed

Abby’s back home again. She spent Monday at her regular vet, where I learned about the miracle called Lasix. She’ll be on it the rest of her life, along with a low-sodium diet.

She’s still not eating well, though. Since Monday night she’s only nibbled at her food, and because her weight was already down we’re worried about this latest turn.

Emergency vet again

This time for Abby.

Around 4am her breathing woke me up — it sounded like she was hyperventilating, though she wasn’t agitated. After about ten minutes without letup, we took her to the emergency vet about ten minutes away. They listened to her lungs and ran some x-rays, finally diagnosing her with congestive heart failure.

The vet quickly said that “failure” doesn’t mean that she’s not going to make it, but that once we get past this episode, it can be managed with diet and medication. She’s in very good shape — far better than most 15-year-olds — and has a good chance of pulling through this.

But it’s now 2:00pm, and she’s still there, hooked up to oxygen and an IV, while they work to get the fluid out of her lungs. The vet on this shift isn’t quite as optimistic — she’s saying it could go either way, and said that it’s clearly a “crisis” — but also said that there’s some slight improvement in her breathing.

I just hope her body doesn’t give out with the physical stress of a rapid heartbeat and hyperventilation.