Chylothorax is fluid in the chest cavity of kitties. Dis is wot I hab happenin to me. Gettin pleural effusions can be very dangerous and dis condition iz life threatenin, but ma humanz keep a VERY close eye on me.
Fings dey need to watch out for are:
- Rapid breathing / at rest breath rate ovah 40 (mines been 33 average since it wuz drained)
- Bluish gums
- Pale gums and mucous membranes (ma pink nose gets real pale when i sicky)
- Loss of appetite
- Anorexia and weight loss (dis why ma humanz tooked me to vet in first place I lost lots of weight)
- Open-mouth breathing
- Sternal Recumbency (layin straight up on ma chest)
I hab some damage to ma lungs in da left cranial and right middle lobes. So when I go in fur ma follow up x-rays we hab to make sure dey are indeed seein fluid on ma lungs n not just da damge dat wuz done by da fluid afore.
PetMD put it best when dey talk about da problems of kittehs not being able to breath rite and the diseases that cause da problems…
The long-term goal for most of these diseases is quality of life, not cure.
Dis iz from ma CT Scans I had…
The lesions affecting the right middle and left cranial lung lobes are consistent with secondary effects of a chronic chylothorax.
So since dey r sayin dat da damage to ma lungs iz due to chronic chylothorax sounds like I hab had fluid in ma lungs fur a very long time. Ma humanz had asked da vet many, many months ago about me moanin a lil bit when I wuz just layin round. Vet sed it wuz cause I wuz a fat boy and it wuz harder fur me to breath. Part of that wuz true it wuz hard fur me to breath but cause of fluid around ma lungs not just cause I am a big boy. But we lub our vet n herz can’t know everyfin and I wuz breathin okai and no diminished bref sounds any time I wuz at da vet affer dat so can’t really fault her fur not figgerin it out until we had beary shallow brefs n x-rays done.