@msolga,
msolga wrote:
OK, then.
I understand now.
It's just that I thought, from what you wrote, that lethargy was a big part of your vet's concern regarding Viola.
I'm probably being very hard to understand.
From what I can gather, murmurs can mean not a lot, to the cat having a very invalidish life, to an early death or an almost immediate death.
They have grades and the higher the grade the more likely they are to lead to trouble, but not necessarily so. Some cats have long healthy lives with a high grade murmur.
I don't know what violas grade is at this point, but even if I did it wouldn't tell me all that much.
So, as I understand it, the vet knows she has a murmur.....hopes it might go away, as it sometimes does in kittens, and will find out how bad it is and the prognosis when Viola is 12 months old.
Meanwhile, as I understand it, she is trying to get a sense of how bad the news is for Viola by looking at clinical signs. So far the only clinical sign I can see is Violas coughing.
The vet thinks that Viola is showing another bad clinical sign, lethargy. I don't agree, I see no lethargy at home (far from it) and that Viola, as a somewhat anxious cat, was doing the freeze part of fight, flight or freeze.
So the vet, I think, has a view of Viola that worries her more than she would be worried if she saw the real Viola.
However, since the story of how ill she is will emerge over time, and the actual diagnosis of how ill she is will be made with technology, I don't think it matters much that the vets clinical info at this time is in error. It won't make a difference to Viola. I also don't think the vet is lying awake at night because she thinks Viola is more symptomatic than she is!
If she DOES become lethargic, or her cough worsens, I am to take her back ASAP, and the diagnostic tests will be done earlier.
Then, I guess, we'll know her fate....or partly, and if anything can be/needs to be done.
