DISCOVERING AN ARRHYTHMIA

For those who don’t know, our vet discovered a heart arrhythmia at Delilah’s annual exam in June.  Since early July, she’s been seeing a cardiologist.

At the first visit, the vet did an ultrasound and recommended Soltalol to help control the irregularities. At the next visit, they increased her Soltalol and at the recheck, they repeated the ultrasound which showed her irregularities were down to six beats in a four minute period. The vet was over the moon with this, but  a Holter Monitor study was recommended to see what was happening with her heart in the other 1,436 minutes of her day.

We had the first one completed in August, and you can read about that HERE.

Because we had a problem with that first test, we repeated the Holter study on the 11th of October. Last Thursday we got the results of the test and it’s not good.

In a 24-hour period, Delilah had a total of 9,549  Ventricular Premature Beats and 1,162 Supraventricular ectopic beats. That’s almost one every minute!

WHAT IS A VENTRICULAR PREMATURE BEAT AND HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM A SUPRAVENTRICULAR ECTOPIC BEAT?

The cardiologist’s office wasn’t much help when they called with the results of the Holter Study. They told me she’d had over 9,500 irregularities in the 24-hour study and suggested a new medication – Mexilitine (Mex-ill-ah-teen.)

“I have to warn you,” the vet tech said, “This medication is expensive, and it needs to be given every eight hours.”

She wasn’t kidding. To purchase the medication from the vet was $197 a month.

My initial reaction was, “We can’t afford $200 a month, and I don’t know how I’ll manage to give it to her every eight hours, I work.”

The vet tech told me of an online pharmacy in California that sold it for $95 a month, and she also suggested checking Walmart. Then she asked me if I had anyone who could come in midday to give Delilah her meds.

Honestly, WTF? Do these people think I’m made of money? A dog walker in my area charges $30 a walk. To my knowledge they won’t just pop over to give her a pill. I’d have to pay for a ‘walk’ and It would cost me $150 a week to have someone come in.

I asked about timing. “What if I can’t give it to her every eight hours?” Like what if I give it to her right before I leave for work, as soon as I get home and just before bed? I was told it would probably be okay.

Naturally I then asked if there wasn’t a less expensive drug we could use.  She said she didn’t think so, but she would check. I asked, “What if we can’t afford the new medicine?”

Delilah could collapse and die, or die in her sleep.

After I hung up with the vet tech and stopped crying, I went to the online pharmacy she recommended, (HealthWarehouse) and using their online chat, discovered I COULD get the medication for $94 a month, and I COULD put it on autoship. According to the chat rep, there would be no charge for shipping.

After I chatted with the warehouse, I called Walmart and it was $187. Then I decided to call MY pharmacy. The out of the box cost was $223, BUT they have a discount card that brought the meds down to $95.

The next step was getting Hubby on board.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to ask him if he loved Delilah $200 a month worth. He did whistle when I threw that figure at him, but then I told him how it came down to $95 and he was totally okay with it.

We then brainstormed on how we could possibly get her mid-day pill in and I think we have a plan. Once we get it in place, I’ll let you know how it works out.

WHAT THE HELL DOES THE HOLTER REPORT SAY?

I tried re-reading the Holter report, and googling the medical words, but I couldn’t understand it.

So I put a call in to my own vet.

I don’t know about you, but there is something so reassuring about speaking with my own vet. She did her best to put the information in such a way that I could understand it.

“Ventricular Premature Beats and Supraventricular ectopic beats.” – In English this says, some of the irregular beats are coming from the Atria (upper two chambers of the heart) and some are coming from the Ventricles (lower two chambers.)

Ventricular originates in the Ventricles and the Supraventriculars originate in the Atria. Ectopic means irregular. So basically all this report says is she has irregular heartbeats in both her Atria and her Ventricular chambers. Something we already knew at my vet’s office on the day of her initial exam.

(I’d finally calmed down after talking with the vet tech, but this could get me going again. WTF do I spend money on a specialist for?)

We still have no idea WHY her heart has these irregularities and according to both my vet and the cardiologist, we may never actually know.

We also talked about the timing of the medication and Dr. Soutter said, “Do the best you can.” The reality is I adore my dogs, but I have to work and there is no way around that.  She will get the medication three times per day, it just may not be every 8 hours.

WHERE WE ARE

There have been a couple of times when Delilah is feeling anxious. I can tell by the way she climbs into my lap. One night a couple weeks back, I could feel how fast her heart was beating. Hubby was gone, but I was fully prepared to take her to the emergency vet when he got home. After about 20 minutes though, her heart slowed down to a normal beat.

These episodes have me super concerned. My biggest fear is that she will collapse and have a traumatic event.

I know I can tell you this, because I know you won’t judge me, but I actually considered helping her to the Bridge.

When I tried to talk to Hubby he didn’t want to discuss it. He said, “She’s fine, just look at her.”

I mentioned it to my vet when we spoke. She told me she would never judge me for making a decision that felt right for me, but she really felt that if the Mexilitene works, despite Delilah being almost 13-years old, she still has some good time left. She also assured me if she thought Delilah’s quality of life was deteriorating, she would tell me.

Delilah started the Mexilitene last Friday, and she is seeing the cardiologist on Monday to have a recheck and see how the medication is working. My vet and I both feel a second opinion is never a bad idea, so I made an appointment for Delilah at Tufts. It’s not until early December, but that gives the Mexilitene some time to work.

HOW I AM

I am mostly okay. I have some good and bad moments, and I do worry a lot. When I let myself really think about it, or when I talk to the vet, I can get emotional and a little weepy, but for the most part I’m doing okay.

The positive thing that has come out of this is, I can now spell arrhythmia without looking it up, and without word underlining my mistake.