Pyometra/cancer

Question
Hi Sandra,

She is doing OK, the Pyometra seems to cleared, the glands that were hard and swollen appear to have shrunk considerably.  she is eating fine, and tries to groom.

Something strange we've noticed is at times her heart beat starts racing VERY fact to the point where she breathes heavy.  in 1 week this has happened twice (that we have noticed), it lasts from a couple of minutes to 5 mins, then calms down.  any idea what causes this?

she tends to forget things, like if shes eating, she'll zone out into outer space, and come back after 10-20 seconds and carry on eating.

what are the symptoms of Cancer?  I don't know whats normal and whats not.  Do you have experience with rats that have had cancer? how long do they survive for?

Some days shes quite bad, some days shes better.

Thank you

Answer
Hi Kully

Sounds like things are working out ok. Keep in mind that she is recovering from one helluva nasty infection. An infection so nasty, the pathogen could have, and in fact, probably did spread to other organs, namely, her heart. In turn, this could damage her heart valves and cause some problems.  

The spacing out....almost reminds me of Syncope which can be from disturbances in heart rate.  She may be having cardiac arrhythmias and when this occurs her heart may race very fast for a few minutes and cause her to breathe very heavy until her heart rate goes back to normal.

Is she clumsy at all?

The "good" news is that if I am correct in my assumptions, there is medication that can help her.  Heart medications can slow her heart rate down and perhaps a round of penicillin, since this is the drug of choice when dealing with infection to the heart and valves.

This of course is an educated guess. If she had cancer, she would have it of the uterus and she would be bleeding vaginally etc...and losing weight rapidly and just feeling really badly. Her symptoms seem more like its cardiac involvement more than anything.