Good News For Lindy

Update on Lindy. Her blood pressure was in the normal range at the internist's. Thank goodness. Also her retina looks normal-- no blood pooling, no signs of it being detached. Please, please let me catch hypertension in her if it develops before she goes blind, suffers brain damage or further kidney damage. Please. I would feel terrible if I didn't. But I might never have to worry about it, only about 20% of cats in renal failure develop hypertension-- a compensatory mechanism gone awry due to changes in pressure in the glomerulus having to do with vasoconstriction of the afferent/efferent arteriole (I still don't totally get this mechanism even after bugging the internist about it-- how does that stimulate renin production and activate the renin-angiotensin pathway if the carotid sinus and baroreceptor in the aortic arch aren't sensing low BP????)

She had a slight heart murmur at the internists (graded I out of IV) but this was probably due to her HR of 240! (Think she was releasing some norepinephrine that caused the alpha 1 adrenergic receptors on the sinoatrial nodal cells to increase her HR? See what stress can do to an animal?) Ohm's law of hydrodynamics no longer holds above a certain threshold and then instead of laminar flow you get turbulence (thank you Osborne Reynolds for determining this threshold, may I never need to calculate it). Hence the murmur. At least my best guess.

Of most concern, her packed cell volume dropped 5% in the past three months. This may indicate her kidneys are decreasing their production of erythropoietin, which may mean that I need to put her on synthetic EPO at some point. This is not without any risk, as it can sometimes stimulate antibody production in cats and then they lose the capability to produce RBCs entirely, the kiss of death (unless you are crazy enough to do continual blood transfusions). But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For now it is good news for my girl and for that I am very, very grateful.