Well, so far, 2018 is not off to a great start (chin up, I expect there will be good things in the year ahead). My story gets a little gross here, so be prepared if you’re easily grossed out. On the night of December 31, Tigger threw up. Not an uncommon thing in cats, but what I saw was not so common. All he barfed up was a little white foamy stuff – no food. But then I saw something squirming around in the white foam. It was worms. ICK! I used a little stick to shove the icky, ugly things into a Ziploc bag so I could show them to the vet. I suspected they were either roundworms or whipworms. I couldn’t get Tigger to the vet until yesterday (Jan 3). He was overdue for vaccinations, so I was taking care of that while I was getting the worm thing checked out. Tigger is the cat who was missing for 4 months so I was concerned he might pick up worms if he was living on his own, eating nothing but mice and birds or whatever he could catch. Well. worms were the least of the problem. I wasn’t even real worried about that, since worms are easily treated. But during his exam, the vet found he has an irregular heartbeat. No murmur, she said, but the heartbeat was very fast (faster than the average frightened cat) and irregular. They did an EKG (that cost around $50) which showed the irregular beat. The vet said this could be a serious problem and could lead to a heart attack or heart failure. I don’t even like to think what it would have been like if he’d had a heart attack while out on his own for those 4 months. Well. Tigger goes back to the vet on the 24th of this month for the second dose of his feline leukemia shot and they’ll check his heart rate again and if it’s still irregular, we’ll try some blood work to look for possible causes (she said that hyperthyroidism is one thing that can cause an irregular heartbeat) and we’ll go on from there. I hope his irregular heartbeat was due to the stress of not feeling well because of the worms.
Well, so far, 2018 is not off to a great start (chin up, I expect there will be good things in the year ahead). My story gets a little gross here, so be prepared if you’re easily grossed out. On the night of December 31, Tigger threw up. Not an uncommon thing in cats, but what I saw was not so common. All he barfed up was a little white foamy stuff – no food. But then I saw something squirming around in the white foam. It was worms. ICK! I used a little stick to shove the icky, ugly things into a Ziploc bag so I could show them to the vet. I suspected they were either roundworms or whipworms. I couldn’t get Tigger to the vet until yesterday (Jan 3). He was overdue for vaccinations, so I was taking care of that while I was getting the worm thing checked out. Tigger is the cat who was missing for 4 months so I was concerned he might pick up worms if he was living on his own, eating nothing but mice and birds or whatever he could catch. Well. worms were the least of the problem. I wasn’t even real worried about that, since worms are easily treated. But during his exam, the vet found he has an irregular heartbeat. No murmur, she said, but the heartbeat was very fast (faster than the average frightened cat) and irregular. They did an EKG (that cost around $50) which showed the irregular beat. The vet said this could be a serious problem and could lead to a heart attack or heart failure. I don’t even like to think what it would have been like if he’d had a heart attack while out on his own for those 4 months. Well. Tigger goes back to the vet on the 24th of this month for the second dose of his feline leukemia shot and they’ll check his heart rate again and if it’s still irregular, we’ll try some blood work to look for possible causes (she said that hyperthyroidism is one thing that can cause an irregular heartbeat) and we’ll go on from there. I hope his irregular heartbeat was due to the stress of not feeling well because of the worms.