nooky

Dear Laura and Melissa and other pet lovers, I have good news about my kitten Rascal. It has been almost 10 weeks since his neutering surgery when he had brain damage and a complete loss of sight. Now,not even can he see big objects and play with his sister, he has just started to be able to see small objects in front of him like his toys. He can chase a ball a little bit, although his attention span is quite short. But we are very encouraged that maybe eventually all of his sight will come back. The vet said that it's not a problem with his eeyes, just his brain has to heal and relearn everything. The fact that he is young is a good thing. He has a better chance of his brain making new connections to his eyes. I hope and pray that your Nike will recover too. Nooky

Dear Laura, I wanted to update you on my Rascal since we are so encouraged by his progress. It's been just over three weeks since his surgery and now he has quite a bit of vision back. He can jump up on most things now like the bed and chairs. He even plays with his sister Princess and they wrestle like they used to. She chases him when playing and he runs as fast as he used to do before his blindness. It really is amazing how far he has come! He even goes in the litter box now after we bought a special kind of litter for problem cats called "Cat Attract" by Dr. Elsey. It's guaranteed to make your cat go into the litter bax or your money back. Their website is www.preciouscat.com . I got it at my local pet store in Toronto Canada. He eats well, but I buy him a baby cat dry food for kittens one to four months old by Royal Canin because it consists tiny round morsels that are easier to chew since he licks his food a lot. We are so overjoyed at his progress and to think we almost put him down two weeks ago because of his suffering. I hope that your Nike continues to improve like our Rascal and if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. I really appreciate everyone's help and best wishes, especially your's and Maylissa's. Nooky

Dear Laura, I'm hoping you can help me decide what to do by answering some questions about your Nike. We are faced with putting our Rascal down tomorrow because there is no improvement and we feel he is suffering because he cries so much. It's ripping our hearts out watching him crying and walking around in utter frustration not knowing what's happening around him. I cry all the time for him and for his sister who is so missing him. She soesn't want to chasse the paper balls that they both used to chase together. I don't think I can stand it much longer. This is the 6th day after his surgery and he still can't see anything or even recognize what his litter box is for. After crying most of the morning, he finally peed and had a bowel movement on the bathroom floor. Whenever I try to comfort him he cries even more to tell us how much he hates it and for us to do something. This is the saddest thing we've ever had to go through. He coughs after eating too usually so I'm thinking there's probably too much ndeurological damage done. I hate that vet! I don't know how I'm going to get over this. Every time I look at little Princess I think of our poor little Rascal. Did your Nike have any other problems like not going in the kitty litter or crying a lot? Do you think we should wait any longer for improvement or put him out of his misery now? Anything you can tell me will help. Thanks Nooky

Dear Laura, Thank you for the encouragement. It's so heartbreaking to see my baby like this, especially when he and his sister were so close and so frisky together. They brought joy to your heart when you saw them running and playing with each other. We don't have children, so these little furballs are our babies. We lost our previous 17 year old sweetheart, Snookums, (Nooky, for short) just before Christmas. So we decided to foster a pregnant feral cat from Animal Aid to help us get over our grief. She had three kittens, but one died at 3 weeks old. We were devestated because we had never experienced a kitten dying, especially one so young. The other two kittens were so precious and inseparable, that we had to keep them. Now we are going through heartache again over our little Rascal's blindness. He's just like a newborn baby. We can't let him wlk around by himself yet, so we keep him in a big box by the bed. This morning at 4 am. he started crying loudly. I picked hinm up and tried to feed and comfort him but it didn't help. Then I realized he was having a painful bowel movement (the first since surgery 3 days ago.) After that, I fed him and he went back to sleep. He's so helpless. This morning at 8 am. he started crying again and I couldn't console him, so i took him over to the vet's because I was worried that he hadn't peed in 24 hours and he was in pain. By the time I got there 5 minutes later, he had peed in his carrier, so I took him home and he fell asleep. I can't go to work with my husband anymore (we own a small business) because my little Rascal needs me for everything. I'm going to put padding around the metal bed frame today and any sharp or hard objects that can hurt him. Then maybe I can let him out to walk more. I'm so glad to hear that your Nike's vision is coming back. Do you think she'll regain all of her sight? I read from an online vet that young cats have good recuperative powers. I have to play with my little girl Princess a lot more to keep her occupied since she misses her brother so much. We'll just take it one day at a time. Nooky

Dear Laura and other cat owners: I too now have a blind kitten who just went in for neutering at 5 and a half months and apparently had a bad reaction to the anesthetic. His sister came out of her spaying surgery just fine because the vet used gas on her after having a problem with my poor boy Rascal. I took them in on Tuesday morning and the vet said he's never had any complications in his 14 years and not to worry. Then about an hour later he phoned to say that Rascal's heart had stopped during surgery but they managed to ressusitate him. He used Ketamine and Valium on him like he does on all of his patients, but was worried about using it on his sister because they're litter mates and she might have the same reaction. So he used gas on her and she came home right after as if she had nothing done. My poor Rascal was so dopey and limp when I went to get him. He was trying to move because he had to pee but had no control. So I held him and he peed on me and then I took him home. He slept all afternoon with a very loud snoring sound and woke up crying in the evening. He stood up and walked around very wobbly all the time crying and walking into walls. I knew then that he was blind. my little girl kitten hissed at him whenever she came near him because she knew something was very wrong with him. I couldn't stop crying all night. I phoned an emergency vet and they said to put him in his carrier and leave him in darkness. So I left him right beside my bed and kept checking on him. His breathing was very raspy all night like heavy snoring. He cried in the night once and I picked him up and he peed on the bed. I dried him off and put him back in his carrier when he had settled down again. The next day he was still out of it, sleeping most of the time with a raspy snore but waking up with nightmares, crying and trying to walk. He was so disoriented, it broke my heart. The next morning the vet called and said he had been talking with an internal specialist and he thinks it could be that Rascal has "hypertrophic cardiomyopathy" which is a thickening of the heart muscle walls. He may have pulmonary edema as well which is fluid in the lungs because of his raspy breathing. He recommended that he have an ultrasound of his heart by the specialist on Thursday. Later in the afternoon when my Rascal started wailing and acting very agitated, I rushed him to the vet. He had peed in his carrier on the way to the vet's and was calm by the time I got there. Another vet in the office took an X-ray of his lungs and they were clear. He managed to eat a bit of canned food off the vet's fingers and she gave him water with a syringe. But she confirmed that he was blind and she thinks he has neurological damage due to a lack of oxygen to his brain during the operation. I took him home again and he w so limp and lifeless I thought I might lose him in the night. But by this morning (Thursday) he seems to be out of the trance of the drug. He's alert and not raspy. He even started purring! I gave him some of the canned food from the vet and he ate a whole plateful, although he got it all over himself because he can't see. I,m so grateful that he's still alive but devestated about his blindness. I cancelled his ultrasound because I don't think it's his heart. I've read a lot on the internet and one vet online said that young cats can get their sight back. I'm praying that Rascal will be lucky. There's so little information out there about this and my vet is in the dark as much as I am about it. Why don't they prepare vets for this kind of thing? Nooky