just when we thought it couldn't get any worse

ray and i decided to call the vet school and postpone mimo's endoscopy for one day. he hasn't vomited --which is good, and possibly indicates the absence of a string-- but then again he hasn't pooped either, indicating the possibility of obstruction. he's still alert, eating and acting pretty normal, though to my possibly overly-critical eye he seems more tired and a little less playful than usual.

dr. mazzei had news for us when we called, though. apparently the radiologist had finalized the official review of mimo's x-rays, and though he didn't find anything new regarding the string he did find pneumothorax: a pocket of air in his chest cavity. once it was pointed out to him, dr. mazzei saw it definitively. he simply hadn't been looking for something like that before.

pneumothorax apparently has 3 causes. 1) lung worms (!?), a thought that makes my skin crawl. 2) chronic asthma, something we aren't attuned to in mimo, but i suppose could be there. 3) something less urgent and less specific. (sorry, this converstion happened before i had really waken up.) dr. mazzei definitely wants to have this checked out, so by bringing mimo back for further investigation of the string we'll actually accomplish two things.

now, regarding the string... dr. mazzei believes that if it exists, the string is definitely beyond his stomach by now. (this makes sense, especially given that mimo hasn't pooped in 4 days.) if this is the case, then there is no need for endoscopy tomorrow; the camera can't see past his stomach. so mimo will simply start with more x-rays. if the string is in his intestine, then his x-rays should look radically different than they did a couple of days ago. (his intestines should look distended and bloated if the string is that far along.)

what sucks (as if all of this didn't suck enough already) is that if there is indication of the string in his gut, we need to be ready for the possibility that mimo is going to have to have surgery tomorrow. we'll drop him off at 7:30 am (the time of day they reserve for all incoming surgery patients) knowing for sure that he'll get x-rays, but everything else will be up in the air.

what i'm unclear on right now (i'm still wiping the sleep from my eyes) is what further diagnostics will be ordered for the pneumothroax tomorrow. also buzzing around my head like a pesky fly is the knowledge of mimo's heart murmur. it would be good if they could also do a heart workup on him tomorrow, too --maybe even before surgery, if he needs it-- just so we wouldn't have to bring him back there again. he really isn't fond of that place.

as a somewhat interesting side note, mimo doesn't mind going to our regular vet, dr. manley. he doesn't love it, but he's definitely not as unhappy as he is at the vet school. perhaps this is because dr. manley has a thing in her exam room similar to a glade plug-in which eminates some sort of cat-calming pheromone into the air. i'm surprised that the vet school doesn't have something similar, but then again they also treat a wider range of animals there. perhaps a plug-in for a cat would totally piss off an iguana. who knows.

so that's the update for today. i'm home again, looking after him. (happily, i've also been told to stay home because of the terrible snow conditions on the roads.) tomorrow at 7am --god, i hope the roads are better by then!-- we'll take mimo to the vet school for more string-related x-rays and further diagnostics on the pneumothorax. and we'll cross our fingers that he won't have to have surgery.

Posted by xta at January 20, 2005 09:06 AM | TrackBack