BEIGATTI MAINE COONS

So this past Monday, I loaded Olive and Tasha into the car to be part of a clinical trial at Tufts University (outside of Boston) on Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) and size and nutrition in the Maine Coon.  (OK, that is not the official title, but here is a brief description of the trial.)

We got to Tufts around 10:30.  They examined Tasha first.  They poked, prodded, x-rayed, took blood, ultrasounded, and generally annoyed her.  Tasha was particularly offended at the entire procedure.

The good news:  Her heart has no sign of HCM, no thickening of the heart muscle and she can continue in my breeding program.

Next it was Olive's turn.  Olive was bred on July 10th, and I thought it might not have "taken."  A couple of weeks later, I thought she might be pregnant, then another week later, not.  I didn't know what was going on with her.  She went through the same procedures as Tasha with one exception:  they palpated her abdomen and ultrasounded her to check for a pregnancy.  Olive was not pregnant.    The fine veterinarians at Tufts noticed that there was a small bit of fluid in her uterus, so it could be "something."  hmmmm.  The result of the cardio testing revealed that Olive's heart was sound (yay!), but there was that fluid...

That night I received a call from my (hometown) vet...she had the results of the testing at Tufts and the bloodwork showed that she had an infection.  Her uterus was slightly enlarged, and there was that pesky fluid that showed up on the ultrasound.  Bottom line, she is now on antibiotics, and we are going to breed her again once the infection is cleared.

Funny thing, had I not participated in the clinical trial, I never would have known anything was wrong.

Olive is now relaxing at home, getting better, and we hope she will recover soon.  I will keep her status up to date on my kitten page.