So an update.. Harvey is with the Cardiologist today and there's good news and bad news but it's mostly good news!
Harvey doesn't have Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy or Congestive Heart Failure, despite all the indications that he does! The Cardiologist says that the vets he's seen so far were completely right to assume this condition as he has all the symptoms and his response to treatments given were also a good indicator of the condition. However, he said in all his years of working he has come across one other cat who has given all the signs and symptoms of this condition but didn't have it - Harvey makes two.
His heart isn't normal, there are abnormalities but the abnormalities are so minor that there's no way they could be causing congestive heart failure or the pleural effusion (fluid in his lungs) he's been suffering with. The heart problems he has are still fairly minor and they may or may not worsen into something that requires treatment but for now he won't require treatment for them but they need to be monitored annually.
What he does have is some kind of chronic lung condition or disease. He's responding to diuretics which would suggest some kind of fluid accumulation in the lungs and this showed up on his initial x-rays. The x-rays also show some whitening of the lungs and the cardiologist said the x-rays he has for Harvey don't really tally up with a diagnosis of Asthma, although given his history of coughing there's a possibility that he does have Asthma too but it's not what's directly causing all his acute symptoms and pleural effusion. What it looks like at this stage is that perhaps he's had Asthma ongoing and this has led to some other type of infection that is causing his acute symptoms - they don't really know at this stage.
His bloodwork is completely normal, although he's showing symptoms of mild anemia but the vet said it's still just on the right side of the normal range so it could be that this is normal for him.
The bad news is that we still don't know what the problem is and the whitening of his lungs isn't fantastic as it suggests something unpleasant is going on. As a result he's now being referred to the Dick Vet School in Edinburgh for more extensive tests on his lungs to try to come up with a diagnosis as whatever is going on is quite unusual. Trust Harvey to be one of those 1 in 1000 rare cases...
The good news in all of this is that because his heart is functioning normally he no longer has to take an ARB or blood thinner so that's two medications that were making him poorly that we can drop. He does need to stay on the diuretics for now as he's responding to those so there may be fluid buildup that is responding to that treatment but the cardiologist is hopeful that once we know what the root cause is then the diuretics will be replaced with a more suitable treatment.
The other good news is that the risk of him dropping dead has now reduced significantly! He is not at risk of blood clots and he's not at risk of stroke or heart attack and stress is no longer a severe risk to him either
!!
I cannot begin to express how relieved I am about all of this. The cardiologist did say not to get my hopes up too much quite yet because the lung condition he has could be life shortening too as we don't know what it is yet, but he said that lung conditions are usually far more treatable and prognosis is much better than a heart condition and the suspected heart failure was the reason for his initial poor prognosis. If he has no heart failure (which he doesn't) then prognosis is significantly better.
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.. this last 7 weeks has been beyond traumatic and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Poor Harvey still has a long road ahead of him and some very unpleasant tests to undergo but it's looking like there's hope for him yet! He's being referred as an urgent case so they're hopeful he'll go in sometime next week.. I'll find out this evening hopefully. Harvey has always been awkward.. it would appear he's awkward in his health conditions too. The cardiologist is quite fascinated by his case... ! He's still at the vets right now recovering from his sedation but once he gets home I'll be fussing him uncontrollably
!
the vet hasn't given a prognosis yet but I understand it's not good once they go into acute CHF. He will be prescribed heart meds and diuretics when I collect him but can anyone give me more advice on how long I'm likely to have him for? And what I can do to make his life more enjoyable 
