Miaows & The V.E.T.

We've been on kitten-moon all day, naturally. Romeo & Juliet have well and truly settled in now, and have been bright as buttons all day, and extremely playful, much to Emily's delight. They've found their purrs too!

We took them to the V.E.T. this afternoon for a checkup. The good news was that Romeo's ear mites were of course easily treatable. The bad news, totally unexpected, was that Juliet has a heart murmur :-((( The poor vet was trying to explain this to me but bless him, being very careful what he said in front of Emily. The upshot is that she *may* grow out of it over the next few weeks. If it's still present when she has her second lot of vaccinations in about six weeks time, it'll need urgent investigation to find out how serious it is, what's causing it, and what can be done. That means referral to a specialist animal cardiologist for ecgs, ultrasound and stuff, potentially even for heart surgery on our tiny bundle of purrs :-((

They won't spay Juliet without that investigation first, because anaesthetic could potentially be fatal, depending how bad it is/what's causing it. Apparently the cost could run into thousands, he pointed out gently, whilst tactfully enquiring if we had them insured. I insured both kittens on the phone this morning. Of course, they're not covered for anything that's "diagnosed" within the first 14 days, but when I told the vet we only had them yesterday and only insured them this morning, he didn't seem worried and didn't seem to think that would be a problem. I assume that because it may yet go away it hasn't officially been "diagnosed" yet, or at least not for treatment purposes.

Anyway. She's seems very fit and healthy at the moment, full of life. I did a fair bit of research on the net when we got home, and found all kinds of inconclusive evidence, some pointing out that congential heart murmurs often cause no problems at all, and that far more serious is when an adult cat suddenly develops one...and other evidence to say that congential heart defects are the major cause of kitten death under a year. Gulp. Guess we'll just have to hope, and to see. Although the vet was careful with his words, Emily was obviously worried :-( As are we all.

Pictures above (or will it turn out to be below?) in separate post, since blogger doesn't seem to want to upload them this evening.