cat scan

leland is now safely at home, & i am back in the office to finish off my workday. woohoo.

apparently leland has an abnormally high heartrate. his x-rays were pretty clean (no signs of heart enlargement, tumors, etc), but the rapid heart & the heart murmur suggest that he might have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (hcm). so he still needs an ultrasound for a proper diagnosis. i've left a voicemail with the recommended specialist; if possible i will set up an appt for next week sometime.

the fact that he's otherwise asymptomatic is a good sign & suggests that if he does have hcm, it's likely to still be mild, so he could still live a fairly normal life. on the other hand, hcm is known to kill quite suddenly in some cases.

it all comes down to the ultrasound. they'll have to shave a bit of his belly for that.

i'm supposed to find out about blood test results tomorrow.