Katharine Hepburn in the ER at 1 a.m. Due to Rear Leg Lameness and Fainting

I've written about this before: cats (and someone once told me kids) end up in the ER middle of the night, rarely during the day. Katharine Hepburn was in the ER at 1 a.m. last night/this a.m. Around 11:30 p.m. she suddenly seemed to be lame in the rear right leg. She kept hobbling around; then it seemed fine; then she would lay down and hold it up. We watched her for awhile and it was on and off. So, we put her in our room to monitor her. To me, she appeared to walk not on her pads but on her hocks-the part of the leg connected to the pads. Cats will sit on these for sure but when they walk, they should be on only their pads. After about ten minutes in the room, she became disoriented, couldn't stand up, seemed to fall over, etc. It reminded me of what Myrna did back in 2009 when she first ended up in the ER due to HCM. So, we left and by the time we get to the ER it was 1 a.m.

They kept her for two hours. They suggested she had a seizure or threw a clot. They put her on oxygen just in case. They took a CBC/chem panel, an xray, and a heart blood test-the proBNP test (potentially shows signs of heart disease but it can be a false negative and does not say WHAT is wrong which is why an echo is what the cat really needs), and did a Doppler reading on the arteries in the legs. ALL of it came back negative for any particular reason. As far as they know, the heart looked fine in the xray (you can determine size with an xray and see if there is congestion.) The blood work was almost normal but the Lactate (similar to CPK level which is a muscle enzyme) was HIGH. This is what happens when the body has reduced oxygen levels and the muscles kick out something with which to compensate. This is an acid level test which measures lactate acidosis.
Here's an interesting article/paper:
http://www.vetlab.com/Hughes%20IVECCS%20What%20Does%20it%20…

So, clearly something happened to reduce oxygen and cause lameness but what? I called the cardio's office while there and left a message. They called this a.m. and we will see them tomorrow. Katharine has an annual cardio checkup due to a slight murmur and because she's Myrna's sister. This would have been in June or July anyway. The other thing they suggested was to get an MRI so we will make an appointment for a local vet to do an MRI. And we need to retest her lactate level when she's not sick.
They gave her a pain med Gabapentin for three times a day. It's a pain/anti seizure med.

So, that's all we know for now.